Natural History's bird collections

Yesterday I went to the Natural History Museum in DC. I went with a group of people to explore the museums bird collections. You need special permits and stuff to get in there, because (obvioiusly) they don't want any old person messing with the collections. Anyways, our guide, Mr. Schmidt, first showed us to a room and showed how they preserve a bird. He had a dead Song Sparrow on the table. To cut a long story short, he basically cut the bird open, emptied out and got rid of everything except some tissues for DNA samples, the skin of the bird, and the skull. Than he stuffed it and sewed it up.

Before preservation After preservation

Then our guide showed us on. We looked at some of bird, egg and nest specimens. Even Ivory-billed woodpeckers and Carolina Parakeets.

It was a really fun event. See if you can schedule a trip to the collections with them! You'll love it!