Some of my friends are ornithologists. A couple of them just got back from a 3 week trip to Panama where they were collecting specimens for the museum they work for. They said that the trip was good, and that they were able to get most of the birds they were after, including some Trogons - the group that one of them studies (pictured).He mentioned that he wasn't looking forward to preparing the Trogons for the museum because they are some of the hardest birds to skin without pulling all their feathers out. One guy they work with always jokes about how Trogons lose half their feathers when you shoot them, and the other half when they hit the ground.
This prompted one of my other friends to say, "It's almost like birds weren't meant to be shot . . . almost."
2 comments:
Wow, I wish my work was this easy. Imagine instead of following people aroung and interviewing them to find out what they were like, I could just shoot and stuff them. Hmmm something to think about.
--pardon my not-so-veiled hostility at science
Aaah, but the stories that can be told from their DNA after they're shot and stuffed is where it gets interesting. Mine are even easier, I just throw them in a jar of ethanol after I sample.
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