Saturday, 21 March 2009

A View of what is inside a Bird's Head


Here is another example of Fran Britten's skull collection. I am not sure what it is, but it is beautifully engineered. When I was young, say 12 or 13 and keen on learning biology at school, I used to find dead mice etc. and put them in or near an ants nest. The theory was (and I can never remember where the theory came from) that the ants would strip the bones clean and then you could mount the remaining skeleton for display. I seem to remember that it worked well for mice, but was not good for birds as the feather is immensely strong and indigestible. Does anyone else collect skulls or similar?

4 comments:

  1. This reminds me of 4 of my paintings (I sold one) Where I painted the same Longhorn cow skull into each painting. They were Southwestern in nature. Maybe I'll blog one next week just for fun. I like your old photographs as well. People can sure look creepy in B/W and without smiling!

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  2. Your paintings with the Longhorn cow skull in sounds fascinating - I'll keep an eye on your blog in case you do publish one. You're right about people looking creepy in the old photographs. There has been a lot of interest from fellow bloggers, but I hope to get out and find some more 'faces on trees' [see early blogs]
    Best wishes
    Laurie

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  3. I collect 'natural' things unearthed in our old garden, from sculls to fossils, even shells from birds' eggs (once hatched, I often find them on the ground) and birds' nests once the season is over; even lichen fallen from ancient apple trees.

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  4. Thank you Ann,
    Your collection of natural things sounds fascinating. It triggered a memmory of once finding a beautiful birds nest made of green moss. It was so soft.
    Laurie

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