Bird Spa @ Eastside Audubon
Written by Shruti Mehta
Members of the Youth Education Committee met on a Tuesday last month to give our bird mounts a 'Spa day'. It was a rainy day, so a perfect one to spend indoors with the birds and some bird lovers. We had a great time grooming these bird mounts while exchanging stories of birds and bears. Sharing some highlights here with all of you.
We have a collection of over 25+ bird mounts ranging from small birds like Black-capped Chickadee, Gold-finch and Dark-eyed Junco and the more majestic ones like Osprey, Great Horned Owl and Red tailed hawk. Feathers are dead protein, very much like our hair - they too need regular maintenance. Over the past couple of months, Jill had frozen these mounts and then treated them with pest medicine to kill mites & their eggs. In this 'preening' session, we started with blow drying the feathers to remove any dust, sprayed a diluted alcohol mixture on the feathers, smoothed the feathers with a brush and then cleaned the eyes and feet with cotton. Thanks to Amanda Leon (Executive Director of EAS) for the detailed instructions and Jill Keeney for being a wonderful host to us and the birds.
I have seen these mounts several times before, but had not had the luxury of observing these mounts closely and noticing the details. We marveled at the Barn owl feathers, which at the leading edge of the wing have a comb-like structures termed serrations. This structure is known to play a role in noise reduction during flight which helps in the Barn Owl's almost silent flight. I was able to see the clear difference in the size of Cooper's Hawks and Sharp Shinned Hawks; two species which I have been struggling to ID in the field. I have yet to see a Northern Pygmy Owl so it was interesting to see the bird mount, I was fascinated that it is even smaller than a Northern Saw-whet Owl! I have seen Ospreys several times around Marymoor but had not noticed the intricate pattern on their wings. It was also a real treat to discover tiny serrations on the bill of a Hooded Merganser; which helps it to keep hold of slippery fish.