Swallow feathers seen after shoot heads north (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
gulp down
'swallow' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'feathers seen after shoot heads north' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'feathers' could be 'down' (down can mean bird feathers) and 'down' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'gulp' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for gulp down that I've seen is " Hastily consume".)