Inky - You rock! I mean really big boulders, dude!
Thank you! Never let it be said that I passed up a chance at a cheap “pecker” joke.
On a side note, Turpentine, something I’ve long wondered about: How do you get the little birdies brain out of it’s skull when your taxidermitizing (or whatever the process is called) it without ruining the fragile thing? Won’t it rot if you don’t remove it?
Also, how does one go about making, say, a sparrow’s eye? Plastic straight-pin head?
Wow…
I just wrote this as a reminder to myself and for possible assistance from others, and this thread gets all the posts the next day, AFTER I already remember my stiff pecker.
Thank you Inky-
I loved your poem. I will print out a copy and shred it and stuff it into the little wee woodpecker.
I will share some of my taxidermy secrets, but please note that I am NOT a professional and I am self-taught so my methods may be disastrous.
For larger birds like a sea gull, you don’t have to get the brains out because you skinned the bird- it’s just a skin stretched over a wooden (or in my case, papier-mache because i’m poor) model.
Little birds are too hard to skin properly so you just remove whatever guts you can and then stuff it and sew it back up. If the bird is a tiny little hoppy sparrow, you can just pull the brains out through a hook in the eye and let it just dry up like bird jerky. The feathers hide all the imperfections in the skin.
I nailed a bird to my bulletin board with its wings outstretched (I didn’t kill it, it was already dead) and spray-painted it silver. It looked really cool and we used it as a Christmas tree ornament.
I use self-drying clay for the eyes and then polish it with varnish or black nail polish. But once i used black plastic pin heads for a mouse I made. I sewed sparrow wings on the mouse and once again, I spray-painted it silver and hung it on the Christams tree that year.
I repeat— I’m NOT a professional.
University of Panama. They have a collection of study skins, so I give any birds or other animals I find to them to prepare.
I’m not a taxidermist, but I sometimes have to prepare what are known as “study skins” for scientific use. They don’t look very lifelike, but allow ornithologists to compare plumages, etc. It is a very meticulous procedure. I have skinned and prepared hummingbirds, but that’s a real chore!