Burke Museum

Lat:47.66063861939029, Lon:-122.31028240171611
Day, 2012
4/23/12
1:30-3:30

Today we visited the Burke Museum and looked at the tons of birds they have in collections there. At the Burke, we were led by the museum's ornithology collection manager Rob Faucett on a tour of some of the birds in their collections. Rob taught us a few of the ways they use these collections to study birds. They use plumage patterns to study skin, skeletal specimens to study the size and shape, they spread the wings to study feather pattern and size, and they can also use tissue samples for DNA and other scientific studies. Rob also said that they stuff the birds a certain way so that they lay flat on their backs. Apparently they used to be stuffed so they resembled what they actually looked like living. However, this resulted in a lot of damage when in collections and also decomposition so, even though this newer way doesn't allow you to see the birds' actual shape or wingspan etc., it is still a better method of collecting and storing.

One of the things I thought was really amazing was the molting of different birds' feathers. We looked at two different species: the Black-footed Albatros, and the Canada Goose. With the black-footed albatros, it has evolved to molt its feathers in sections. You can tell by looking at its wings that if 3 feathers are ruff they are older, and if 3 are flat they are newer. They will have three 2 year old feather, three 1 year old feathers, three brand new feather, and then it starts over with three 2 year feathers etc. The albatros has evolved to molt its feathers this way without losing its ability to fly. Rob told us that scientists have experimented or made calculations and apparently, this is the absolute best way possible to molt feathers. To me, that is so amazing.

With the Canada Goose, they fly to near shore islands and molt all their feathers. They've evolved to do this at near shore islands because they can easily feed on the grass and also not have to worry about predators. Seeing as they molt all their feathers, they wouldn't be able to fly away from predators, so molting on an island is the best place for them.

Species List:
Black-footed albatross
Rail
Canada goose
Marbled murrelet
Hermit warbler
Townsend warbler

Posted on May 22, 2012 07:42 PM by lisad22