Te Papa now has mounted bird images online

[Dave Houston]

Raymond Coory (NE Collection Technician), Gillian Stone (CM Birds) and Jean-Claude Stahl (NE Imaging Supervisor) have been busy imaging our mounted bird collection and making them available to Collections Online. We are about half way through, but this link shows the work achieved thus far.

Simon Whittaker
Head of Collections Management Natural Environment

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Search.aspx?page=8&advanced=colCollectionType%3aBirds

[Steptoe]

I do admire the work....
As my sole interest is in Kakariki I checked out the 2 specimens of the red crowm....and rather disappointed
They are both very scruffy and poor condition, one has a yellow iris and the other a very faint red.
Red and yellow have bright red /orange iris well defined.... the one with the faint Iris is like a chick a week to 10 days out of the nest, and the beck seems to only be 1/2 there.

What concerns me is that if these are to be used as a reference they are inaccurate.
Kakariki are a  very unresearched  species, and in many yrs of caring breeding much of what has been written about them is inaccurate and this has been passed down in subsequent papers ....

I am able to supply good red crown kakariki suitable for accurate reference.

[Leovb]

In relation to mounted NZ Birds.,

We visited the museum in Okains bay Banks peninsula last waitangi day and to my great surprise they had 5 (!) specimens of Huia exhibited, and a "very light" (either bleached or a colourmutation) specimen of Piopio. Besides that a "victorian" type of mounted bird display was broken and shattered on top of a cupboard which contained at least 1 yellowhead. Several species of birds that were exhibited were wrongly named. The overall condition of the mounted specimens was not good and on the medium long term the collection as a whole looked as being at risk.

Especially for the 5 huias that is very much a shame. I can understand a museum of this type doesnt have the budget to employ a proffessional taxidermist but I think that NZ-natural history musea should cooperate in this to save at least these Huia specimens for potential threats.  I suppose that taking care of the rest of the mounted birds to preserve them would be something the Okain museum could use very well to show the public some beautifull examples of NZ birdlive on the long term in a manner that is more appealing and educational.

[Steptoe]

I came across some specimens of kakariki over 100 yrs old at the Putaruru Timber Museum ....and they had heaps of other species there to.
I cant remeber the others, but very well worth investgating .
More details here
http://www.kakariki.net/ftopicp-6929.html#6929