Burke Museum - Birds
24 April 2012 13:40
The Burke Museum located at the northwestern tip of the University of Washington campus possesses a vast collection of bird specimens. The specimens include but are not limited to birds from all over North America, Europe, South America, and Asia. Observing a dead bird inside a museum is a completely different experience than bird watching under a clear sky, and obviously with different purposes. It could be said that studying bird specimens is more of an analysis than observation. Bird specimens allow for investigation of birds' past, hence traveling across time, which cannot be done by bird watching.
Hence, these museum collections serve a great purpose for scientific research for there can be made observations that are not quite possible to conduct on wild bird species. This was contrary to the stereotype that I held previously, which was that museums are for observations by interested civilians. A little thought would indicate that museum specimens would be great for science, though because without these specimens, it could have been a tough mission to find that albatross molt three feathers at a time because they must keep on flying across oceans. This fact was figured out by looking at albatross's wings from inside where feathers have different size and color three at a time. The specimens helped figure out, to the contrary to albatross, that some ducks molt all at once. During such periods, ducks cannot fly, making them susceptible to terrestrial attacks. Albatross do not have the luxury to molt all at once as they have to keep on flying over water.
The temporal archive of the museum may serve as much, if not more importance to scientific research. For example, a detailed research on the food source of a particular bird species showed that prior to 1950s this bird foraged on anchovy. As anchovy decreased in number as a result of human exploitation and environmental degradation, sand lance became the primary food source. In the 1980s, sand lance became harder to catch, so krill replaced them. The problem is that anchovy is an order of magnitude nutritious than sand lance while the same applies to sand lance over krill. In other words, these birds must capture 100 krill instead of a single anchovy to obtain the same amount of nutrient. Clearly capturing 100 krill requires more energy and time, costing these birds increased risk of predation and less chances to reproduce.
Personally, I believe the most significant aspect of a specimen is to be able to physically touch those birds. Needless to say, touching a bird out in the wild is ridiculously difficult no matter how friendly of a person one may be. For this reason, I never had an opportunity to feel a bird's feather before, or their beaks for that matter. It was very smooth and pleasant feathers that those birds had, interestingly similar to the silky sensation of a skin of a dolphin. To imagine that such light feathers assist those birds to fly boggles my mind because it must be effortless for those birds to do so. It makes me think that maybe airplanes do not need to be so heavy when birds are so small but yet so free.
Species list
family Diomedeidae - Albatross
family Engraulidae - Anchovy
family Ammodytidae - Sand lance
order Euphausiacea - Krill
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