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Long Day at the Field Museum

Had both of my classes today at the Field Museum, was there from 9:40 am to 6:00 PM. Awkward 4 hour in between classes but not enough time to go back to my dorm and back again.

Not the worst place to be stuck though!

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House's new friends

House made some friends on our way to the club meeting.

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Cool Classroom Specimens

Our teacher brought in some fun teaching specimens from the field museum for us to sketch!

Gray fox and Great Horned Owl. There was also a funny raccoon but I forgot to snap a photo of him.

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starting over

Nothing serious, but I am starting over on the armature for the pine marten soft mount. The last one wasn't that stable or posable. Wish me luck because he needs to be done in less than week 3 from now to make the deadline.

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Feast For Dermestid beetles 

One fairly common way to remove flesh from bones for either research or personal collections is Dermestid Beetles. These beetles enjoy eating flesh, fur, and feathers leaving behind some nicely cleaned bones.

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Epic Bird Skulls

My research teacher who works in the Field Museum brought in some cool bird skulls for us to sketch in class. It seems like only me and two other people were really into them though. The skulls are owl, parrot, stork, and heron.

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Pretty Fella

Man, I miss my room back home, all my bigger mounts are there. One of the downsides of going to a college that's out of state. This fella is a lovely raccoon I got second hand, great condition but he is missing a few of his toes. Probably because hanging him on the wall was a real battle.

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Inaturalist has built in species identification based on photos, you should consider downloading it!! It's also just good to report your local species and exciting to learn more about the world around you

Thank you for telling me about this!! Just downloaded the app and uploaded both birds. Turns out they're a yellow-bellied sapsucker and a woodcocks. Very exciting

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Unlucky Pretty Birds

It's fairly common here in Chicago and probably a bunch of other big cities, birds love to strike the tall building windows. Due to this, the Field Museum has a team of people who go out each morning to collect bird strike victims. You can also donate birds as well, just have to bring them in with the location of the strike. Unfortunately for both of these guys, I didn't have any container or bag to keep them in. Also, my roommates would probably not appreciate a dead bird in the fridge.

Since America has such strict bird laws I am cautious to take any of these guys to keep, especially since I don't know my bird breeds off the top of my head. Might need to start carrying around a field journal.

Can anyone id these two?

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He's Finished!!!

My soft-mount raccoon is finally finished!!! He has a full-body amateur, it mostly just allows his legs and neck to move. The best I can get him in is this semi-sitting pose. The back for some reason doesn't seem to bend as well. For his face, the nose gave me a lot of trouble, as you can see it's sort of squished.

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Raccoon Head Mounted

Very big day today!! I mounted my 1st ever head. He's definitely wonky. Unfortunately, the head form was too big and needed to be shaved and cut. Even with these alterations though the eyes had to be moved down and the top lip couldn't fully properly tuck in. I put clay into the ears and shaped them into place. My biggest issue was with the nose, for some reason, it just refuses to be reshaped. Forcing me to cut off the head form nose and just allowing the real one with some clay to rest there. Bought a fan just for this so he can dry in time.

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Raccoon Progress

Hard at work with the soft mount raccoon today in class! Super happy that his head form, eyes, and hide paste came in the mail today. Of course, the head form was too big and needed to be cut down but that seems to be a common theme. Batting coming in the mail tomorrow so I should be able to finish him soon!!!

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Birthday gift for my partner from back in May

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Pine Marten Update #3

Finished all the limbs for the armature! It's definitely very wonky and stiff but at least it can fit into the pelt. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to attach the limbs better? Right now they're held with pins that allow them to rotate but are very loose. His shoulders look off if that makes sense? He has areas of loose skin but since the pelt is so tight it's hard to add any more chunk to the armature.

All suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

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Raccoon Soft Mount

Not sure if I am just a sucker for pain or just ambitious but I've begun work on another soft mount for a different class assignment. Don't worry still hard at work on the pine marten, just bringing this fella into the fold as well. Happy raccoons have a lot more room to work with but also that means I need more polyfill. Still waiting for his head form and eyes to come in, along with that order is the hide paste. So I am a bit stuck because I need that for both the pine marten and raccoon in time to finish these assignments. Pray to the taxidermy gods that the shipping will be fast.

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Pine Marten Updates #2

Making progress with the armature definitely looks silly and underwhelming but that doesn't matter for the end result since you won't be seeing it. Bit concerned about getting his head to fit, hoping once it rehydrates it will be more stretchable

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Overjoyed!

Literally beaming with happiness, today I was able to acquire a dream purchase of mine. I got a mountable black wolf pelt. He's absolutely huge!!! Along with him, I got a beautiful coyote rug. The way they mounted his face is brilliant.