Tag Archives: Taxidermy Tuesday

Object of the Month – February 2023

A picture of a taxidermy common eider duck. It has a black cap to its head, a yellow beak, white head, neck and back and a black underside, with yellow legs and feet. Against a painted backdrop of a rocky mountain and hazy clouds.

This month we’re celebrating the Lost Language of Nature project, putting the finishing touches to this common eider. James and Charlotte have cleaned its plumage, repainted its beak and feet, and refreshed its base to help preserve it for future exhibitions.

Common eider mounted skin

Eider ducks are famous for their soft downy feathers which help keep them warm in freezing conditions. ‘Down’ comes from the Old Norse word ‘dúnn’, the word for the fluffy feathers of young birds and the same feathers which insulate adult birds. In adults, the down is hidden beneath the larger contour feathers which give birds their colour, patterns and shape.

A fluffy white feather on a black bacground

Down feather © Wouter Hagens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

These wild ducks can be ‘farmed’ sustainably for their down feathers, which are taken from the nests once chicks have fledged. This down is used to make traditional eiderdown pillows and quilts. In the UK, eider ducks are sometime called St Cuthbert’s duck or Cuddy duck, according to the belief that St Cuthbert’s holiness protected Farne island and its population of eider ducks.

Grassy and muddy ground wiht a grey nest of fluffy eider down. Three eggs are in the middle of the nest.

Eider nest © Paul Gierszewski (Gierszep), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Saffron Walden Museum wants to hear your stories about wildlife and nature in your life, or that you know from parents and grandparents, to help create more interesting, relevant and diverse displays in the future. Fill in a postcard in the Museum to join in or search online for ‘Lost Language Saffron Walden Museum’.

Learn more about this Object of the Month in the Museum throughout February.

Object of the Month – October 2020

New Zealand Kiwi

We’ve been busy over the last few weeks moving the bird taxidermy from a temporary home back to their usual store. October’s object of the month is a mounted kiwi skin, probably of a little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii), the smallest of the five kiwi species.

A stuffed Little spotted kiwi sking, facing left, mounted on a 'naturalistic' base.

The little spotted kiwi in Saffron Walden Museum. © SWM

With strong, heavy legs and no wings, kiwis have evolved for life on the ground. They are nocturnal, dig burrows to nest in, and have stiff, hair-like outer feathers to withstand pushing through leaves and twigs. Unlike most birds they have keen hearing and a good sense of smell to help them find food, mostly earthworms and insects.

A page from a book with drawings showing the head, wing and strong feet of a kiwi.

Kiwis have ‘whiskers’ around their beak, stiff feathers and tiny wings, and strong feet for digging.
[Internet Archive Book Images / No restrictions]

Kiwi numbers have plummeted since Europeans arrived in New Zealand, bringing rats, stoats, pigs, cats, dogs, trophy hunting and habitat destruction. Kiwis grow and reproduce slowly and only thrive today on protected reserves, with intensive work to remove these threats. The indigenous Maori regard the kiwi as a taonga (treasure), and actively protect the birds across 230,000 hectares of land, about the same area as the national government’s Department of Conservation. Altogether, an area of land bigger than Essex is managed for kiwi conservation.

Coloured map of New Zealand showing distribution of kiwis at present day and before European colonisation.

Light green, current location of kiwis; Dark green, location of kiwis before European colonisation; Dark grey, kiwis never known here. [© New Zealand Department of Conservation]

Map with numbers and letters showing locations of Little spotted kiwi populations across New Zealand.

Little spotted kiwi reserves – Predator-free islands: 1, Hen Island; 2, Tiritiri Matangi; 3. Red Mercury Island; 4, Motuihe Island; 5, Kapiti Island; 6, Long Island; 7, Anchor Island; 8, Chalky Island
Mainland: A, Shakespear Open Sanctuary; B, Cape Sanctuary; C, Zealandia.
Michal Klajban / CC BY-SA 4.0

See the little spotted kiwi and find out more about kiwi species in our Object of the Month display when the museum re-opens soon.

More information
New Zealand Department of Conservation (DoC) – Facts about kiwi: https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kiwi/facts/
New Zealand DoC – Little Spotted Kiwi: https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kiwi/little-spotted-kiwi/
New Zealand DoC – Kiwi: https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kiwi/
Science Learning Hub – Conserving our native kiwi: https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/2784-conserving-our-native-kiwi
WWF New Zealand – Kiwi: https://www.wwf.org.nz/what_we_do/species/kiwi/

References

Internet Archive Book Images. ‘Features of kiwis’ Transactions and proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1870). Internet Archive Book Images / No restrictions. Available from commons.wikimedia.org [Accessed 29.9.2020]

Michal Klajban. ‘Apteryx owenii – distribution map. CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). Available from commons.wikimedia.org [Accessed 29.2.2020]

New Zealand Department of Conservation. Kiwi Recovery Plan Summary Document 2018-2028. New Zealand Government, 2018. Available from https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kiwi/docs-work/ [Accessed 29.9.2020]

Object of the Month – February 2020

Snowy owl from front left angle. White breast plumage, with brown bars to sides and legs. Brown spotted plumage on wings. Mounted on a wooden post. Against a dark grey background.

A female snowy owl in the Museum’s collections. Image: © Saffron Walden Museum.

Snowy Owl

A female snowy owl, Bubo scandiacus. Female snowy owls have spotted and striped plumage (above), while the male bird is almost pure white (below, left). Snowy owls live in the Arctic Circle where they hunt for food over tundra and upland moors. These impressive predators eat lemmings and other rodents, birds and rabbits, and only very rarely visit the far north of Britain. This mounted skin was donated to Saffron Walden Museum in 2003 for the Education collection. It has come out of the store for Museums at Night, exhibitions and teaching sessions.

An eagle owl from front left angle. Tawny under-plumage with patterns of dark brown and pale grey in bars and stripes. Vivid orange iris to eyes, and large horn-like feathers. Perched on a wooden post. Against a snowy backdrop.

An eagle owl. Image: Kamil. Corrections Piotr_J [CC BY-SA 3.0] (Wikimedia Commons)

Did you know?

All living things have a common name, like ‘snowy owl’, and a scientific name. The scientific name is a combination of two words which are only used for that species. Humans are Homo sapiens, and our extinct close relatives the Neanderthals are Homo neanderthalensis. We are different species in the same genus, Homo.
But scientific names can change. In 2004, the scientific name of the snowy owl was changed from Nyctea scandiaca to Bubo scandiacus, after years of research on their genetics and the shape of their bones. This showed that they were more closely related to horned owls and eagle owls (above, right), and should use the same genus name, Bubo.

You can see the snowy owl as Object of the Month until 29th February.

The polecat comeback

Object of the Month – February 2019

The European polecat, Mustela putorius, was thought to be extinct in Essex since 1880 thanks to persecution from gamekeepers. The first modern sighting was in 1999 near Wendens Ambo and there are now numerous records from north-west Essex, though only from roadkill specimens.

A mounted polecat skin from 1842 and a polecat skull, also from the 1800s.

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