This spring, the last semester of my undergrad, I was looking to find some new ways to get involved with the UBC community – and I turned to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Having spent some time preparing bird wing study skins in the fall for my ornithology course (BIOL 427 – a fantastic course), I knew spending a couple months working in the collections would be the perfect complement to my biology degree. A quick email to Ildiko Szabo, the assistant curator of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection and I was set to come in the next week.
Walking through the basement of the biodiversity building, I found Ildiko in the dry lab, the room where prepared specimens are stored and processed: identified, labelled, and added to the collection. For some specimens this is a quick process, taking minutes. For others, it takes days. I walked in and Ildiko quizzed me on my favourite bird order. Surprised and unsure, I blurted out Charadriiformes: shorebirds. I’m not sure if it was more because I like the birds or because it was the first word I could think of.
Ildiko then led me to a big old cardboard box filled with eggs: whole eggs, broken eggs, eggs practically ground into powder; eggs from chickens and ducks, from sandpipers and robins; eggs packed in cartons or yogurt cups or just a sheet of paper towel. Dr. Seuss phrasing aside, the big box of eggs was both amazing and terrifying. I had to search through the box, pull out all the Charadriiformes eggs, and identify them; then label and prepare them for entry into the museum catalog.
After reading up on the basics of egg identification (size, shape, colour, texture), I turned to the eggs. The first thing I learned is that Charadriiformes eggs are gorgeous: large and smooth, often with a creamy base and a variety of fine markings. The big, pretty shorebird eggs were easy to pick out from all the other eggs in the box. After easily sifting through the many eggs in the box, I had a pile of shorebird eggs to identify – and I was on a roll!
The second thing I learned was that all the Charadriiformes eggs look the same. Okay, that is maybe an overstatement: many Charadriiformes eggs look the same. Between families there is some variation, but within a family, such as Laridae or gulls, the eggs are all the same size, shape, and colour. Not to mention that in some cases, species have interbred and laid eggs that are intermediate of the two species. At this point, my work slowed down a lot. I had to analyze the shape, size, texture, and colour of the egg, find possible matches in the egg ID book, and then I turned to the collection.
The collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum is world class and I got to dig right in, comparing my eggs with representative specimens in the collection. Working hands-on with the specimens was one of my favourite parts of volunteering at the museum. But this is where I learned my third lesson: biological naming changes more often than you think! While the collection itself was always kept up to date, my books and online resources often pointed me towards old names that were no longer in the collection. I built a working knowledge not only of the most recent naming system, but also past and alternate names. I gained new respect for taxonomists and researchers who work within biological collections: you have to have a fantastic memory of scientific names!
Finally, after several days of egg work, I had identified and labelled MOST of my eggs. Some remained mysteries, maybe from different regions in Canada, maybe from Europe, or maybe for some other reason I could not identify the eggs. Ildiko and I tucked them aside for the day when an egg expert visits the museum.
With a few more weeks left before the end of term, Ildiko turned me towards a new project: updating some of the museum cabinet display windows. I was to refresh two displays by swapping out mounts of taxidermied birds. I sorted through boxes and cupboards of spectacularly coloured waterfowl and grouse to determine which specimens had the best shape, colour, and overall appearance. When all was ready, the Director of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, Dr. Darren Irwin, Ildiko, and I meet to finalize all the new displays. Mine were accepted without any changes! I not only got to learn about the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, to explore its bird and egg collections at length, but I got to leave my mark, and give back.