Behind the scenes

This morning we joined with other members of our bird club for a visit to the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria, where we were taken behind the scenes of the bird room, where one of the curators of the Ornithology Department had laid out a selection of specimens from their collection of around 50,000.

It was a most interesting and enlightening experience of our Southern African species as well as an introduction to some of those collected from around the world.

To be able to handle such specimens, some over 100 years old and in remarkable condition was amazing.

The collage shows some of our group around some of our local specimens, wife H holding a Snowy Owl from Europe & N America, a selection of Australian birds including Honeyeaters, Fairy Wrens, Shrike-tits and Firetails, and a drawer full of Sunbirds.