The Birds

A series of reconstructed-taxidermy birds, created for the Natural History Museum in Saudi Arabia. Each of these birds is either a modified taxidermy specimen, or a full reconstruction. They turned out really nicely.

Yemen Linnet

 Dunlin

 

Arabian Woodepecker

Below is a small selection of 'making of' images from this project. If anyone sees this post and has any questions about this type of reconstruction, please do feel free to get in touch!

 Reconstructing the face of a Collared Kingfisher; rehydrating the skin and pinning it in place to dry.
The skull was moulded, cast in biresin, and then the beak was painted and matte-varnished. 

 Partial face reconstruction, with the skin of the eye now in the right place.

 Wing construction for a Bruce's Green Pigeon - using parts of a pigeon wing to construct the wings for this 

specimen. This bird was actually given to me to fix as someone else on the team had struggled with it.

 Lining up feathers in a natural spread on the left, ready for gluing together

LEFT: Top part of wing made with a wire base; I used a fresh pair of pigeon wings, carefully removing all muscle 
and bones before precisely reconstructing the primary feathers.

RIGHT: Wings of this bird before and after it was given to me to fix. The bottom wing is the one I made, using 
hand dyed feathers, individually glued and laid to create a natural wing position. 

 Rear and top view of near-finished specimen - wing position is beautiful, the hand-dyed feathers look so 
natural. I was really, really happy with how this one was saved!

 Making parts of the Arabian Woodpecker - this bird is endangered, so this specimen was made completely 
from scratch. Here you can see how I put together and shaped the wings, the body core, and how the 
feathers were laid on. All feathers were hand-laid, individually, and it really ended up a thing of beauty!