Preparing Bird Specimens
Recognizing the importance of bird skin collections for current and future generations, this webpage was created to provide basic tools on how to prepare bird study skins. The target audience is graduate students working in the field as well as volunteers and staff at parks, colleges, universities, and museums that have the appropriate permits.
Ildiko Szabo takes full responsibility for any errors in the following PowerPoint presentations. Please contact her at ildiko@zoology.ubc.ca if you have any corrections on wish to contribute images to this educational resource.
Please note: The birds shown in these presentations were salvaged. As these presentations deal with preparing skins from whole dead animals, some images may be considered graphic.
- Intro The look of the bird and a few things to look for – (download intro.ppt)
- Part 1 Spread wings, a good place to start – (download part1.ppt)
- Part 2 Skinning your first bird – (download part2.ppt)
- Part 3 Other skinning methods – (download part3.ppt)
- Part 4 Stuffing your first bird – (download part4.ppt)
- Part 5 Other stuffing and pinning methods & Bird parts – (download part5.ppt)
- Part 6 Sexing birds using gonads (includes 2 quizzes with answer sheets) – (download part6.ppt)
- Part 7a Determining skull pneumatization – (download part7a.ppt)
- Part 7b Skeleton preparations – (download part7b.ppt)
- Part 8 DNA sampling & Gut analysis – (download part8.ppt)
- Part 9 Washing birds for arthropod ectosymbionts & Drying washed skins – (download part9.ppt)
- Part 10 Recording fat levels & Cleaning fatty and stinky skins – (download part10.ppt)
- Part 11 Flat skins, shmoos, and other types of study skins – (download part11.ppt)
- Part 13a Determining Cause of Death: Poisons – (download part13a.ppt)
- Part 13b Determining Cause of Death: Diseases – (download part13b.ppt)
- Part 13c Determining Cause of Death: Trauma wound analysis – (download part13c.ppt)
- Part 13d Determining Cause of Death: Collisions with man-made structures – (download Part13d.ppt)
- Part 14 Labelling: The most important step – (download part14.ppt)
Resources
Almost every avian museum evolves their own variations on the basic specimen preparation techniques demonstrated in photo essay format in the PowerPoint presentations listed above. Collected below are various videos, websites, and documents showing alternate ways to prepare birds. Included are label writing guidelines and other information of interest to people contributing to avian collections.
Videos
- Beaty Biodiversity Museum: Using and Contributing to Avian Collections – NAOC V Workshop
- Beaty Biodiversity Museum: Washing birds for arthropod ectosymbionts
- Field Museum: A Way to Call Home: David Willard
- Field Museum: Skeleton Preparation – Fallen birds get a second life
- Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science: Specimen Preparation
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Division of Birds: Bird Specimen Preparation, Parts 1–3
- University of Alaska Museum of the North: Bird Specimen Preparation, Parts 1–7
- University of Alaska Museum of the North: Preparing Duckling Specimens
- University of Puerto Rico, Museo de Zoologia: Taxidermia de Ave (in Spanish)
Websites
- University of Alaska-Fairbanks: Reaffirming the specimen collection gold standard
- University of Alaska-Fairbanks: Super Pato shows advantages of whole-organism sampling
- University of Alberta-Calagary: List of Feather Mites and Their Hosts
- Federmilben, Denmark: Feather Mites and Their Hosts I, Quill Mites and Their Hosts II, click on the ♀ and ♂ to view pictures of European ectoparasite species.
- Michel Klemann – Feathers: Flight Feathers of European Birds
- University of Michigan Museum of Zoology: Dermestarium
- University of Puget Sound: Wing Image Collection
- Royal Alberta Museum: Eggs: a Visual Exhibition
- U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab: The Feather Atlas: Flight Feathers of North American Birds
Documents
- American Museum Of Natural History: Sweet, P. R. 2007. Proceedings of the 5th International Meeting of European Bird Curators. Collection building through salvage Paper (PDF)
- Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft. Measuring Birds. (PDF)
- Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science: Label Guidelines (DOC)
- Ornithological Council (revised 2010). Fact sheet on zoonotic diseases: what ornithologists and banders should know. (PDF)
- Peregrine Fund: Kiff, L. F. 1989. 107th American Ornithology Meeting Bird Specimen Preparation Workshop Notes. Techniques for preparing eggs and nests. (PDF)
- University of Alaska-Anchorage: Field Catalog (PDF )
- University of Alaska-Anchorage: Prep Manual (PDF)
- University of Alaska-Fairbanks: Winker, K. 2000. J of Field Ornithology Paper on Specimen Preparation (PDF)
- University of Puget Sound: Bird Skinning (PDF)
- Winker, K., J. M. Reed, P. Escalante, R. A. Askins, C. Cicero, G. E.
- Hough, and J. Bates. 2010. The importance, effects, and ethics of bird collecting. Auk 127:690-695. (PDF)