I didn't collect any of these, but I thought they were interesting. They were roosting in a friend's shed.
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Discovered:Unknown Method: Mixed Recovered: 28/03/18 This was a piece of roadkill found by my mother and frozen until she could pass it to me. I removed the tail and feet for mummification, and put the head in a tupperware tub at the end of the garden. The mummification process involves putting the parts in cornmeal (different from cornflour in the UK), in a cardboard box and leaving them somewhere cool and dry for a few months. I recovered the head first, and found that as I has suspected, the skull had been damaged. Nevertheless I collected some of the larger pieces to display. Not long after, I recovered the mummified limbs. Discovered: Unknown, frozen until 03/08/2016 Method: Burial in plant pot Recovered: 01/04/2017 The first squirrel was an exciting birthday present from my parents cats, but unfortunately was not successfully recovered. But it seems that the cats have remembered me, as a whole year later I recieved a second squirrel for my birthday. This squirrel was bigger and in much better condition than the last, was not visibly injured, and felt very soft and fluffy. I initially tried to bury it in the plant pot that I had just recovered a rat from, but the squirrel was too large and so I moved it to a larger pot. Doscovered: Unknown Method: Burial in tupperware tub Recovered: 21/03/2017 My Aunt's friend has a pond, which is dry for half the year. Apparently when it is dry there are usually frog skeletons left in the mud. This interested me, so I was given a contained of sludge from the bottom of the pond to process. I added some soil to the slime and left the tub at the bottom of the garden for a few months. The first thing I noticed upon recovery was this curious little bone, which I am told is the frog pelvis, or pelvic girdle. I noticed that a lot of the bones are very interestingly shaped, quite different from bones I have worked with before. After sorting the bones it took me a while to identify these bones: They are skulls! Quite different from what I was expecting! Discovered: 25/09/2016 Method: Mixed Recovered: 21/03/2017 I found this out for a walk with a friend. I was surprised to find that in a cat-filled area it still had it's head! I froze it as soon as I got home because I knew I wouldn't be able to process it for a day or two. I decided that I don't need the whole skeleton of the pigeon, I decided I only wanted to process the head and feet. The feet I removed with a pair of scissors, I didn't find this too difficult as I had removed the feet of the Crow so I knew what that felt like. I was a bit worried about how to remove the head, so first I tried to move the head into a good angle for removing. Because the bird was still frozen, me twisting the neck to move the head resulted in the head coming straight off in my hands, so I didn;t have to worry about working out how to remove it. The head I put in a tupperware tub in the garden so that insects can reduce it to bones. I decided I would like to keep the feet with flesh on, so I tried a technique I'd read about online. This involved putting the feet in a cardboard box and covering them in maize-meal, then leaving it in a cool dry place for several months. This dries out the flesh and leaves you with mummified feet. I recovered the feet in march 2017, but have been unable to recover the head. In the last few months our landlord has been making several changes to our garden, and I suspect several tubs that I have left in the garden to decompose have been thrown out. Discovered: Unknown Method: Tupperware box in garden Recovered: 14/09/2016 This hamster was once the family pet of a friend, given to me once deceased. The hamster had been dead for some time by the time I received it, hence no 'before' shots. I left it in a tupperware tub at the end of the garden. Here's what I recovered: Discovered: 24/05/2016 Method of Preparation: Tupperware tub in garden Recovered: 14/09/2016 I found this out for a walk, and it was small enough to fit into a tub. The skull was damaged when I recovered it, so I glued it back together and glued some of the teeth back in. The skull is different from how I was expecting it to be, I was expecting something very similar to the other rodent skulls I have, but the hedgehog skull has a larger brain cavity, and very different teeth. Discovered: Unknown Method: Burial Recovered: 03/08/2016 and 21/03/2017 One rat was captured by my parents' cat, and frozen until it could be passed to me. The first rat was left in a Tupperware tub in the garden, so I decided instead to bury this one in a plant pot, and see how different the results would be. I tried to dig up the remains in July, but noted that some of them still had organic matter attached, so re-buried the remains until 3rd of August. The second rat was recovered on the in March 2017, although I have no record or even memory of burying it. So I can't tell you the background of this rat as I don't know where it came from.
If you want to see rat bones you can look at the post from my first rat. But I will show you a picture of the three skulls I now have. Caught by my friend's cat in March and frozen until 27/09/2016 Method: Mixed Recovered: 21/03/2017 I decided that, as I have three, I should use different methods of preparation to process each mouse and then compare the results. The first mouse was put into a tupperware tub with holes poked into it, and left at the end of the garden. The second mouse was put into a tupperware tub, which was then filled with fresh soil and left open in the garden. The third mouse was covered in maize-meal in a cardboard box and left in the attic. Recovering the bones from the tub without soil in it was quite difficult. Mouse fur does not eat eaten by the insects that eat the flesh, as I was left with all the hair in a big sticky sludge. All I was able to retrieve from the sludge was the jaw bone. Recovering the bones from the tub with the soil in was much more successful. Although I was unable to retrieve the back of the skull, which means that this new skull matches the skull from my first mouse where the skull broke during cleaning. Recovering the mummified mouse was easy, it just required dusting off the corn flour. |
AuthorI live in the UK, and enjoy decorating my home with bones from naturally deceased animals. Archives
July 2018
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