Huge Post: Owls Displays from the Carnegie Natural History Museum, some great, some not so much... [Content warning: not live owls]
Huge Post: Owls Displays from the Carnegie Natural History Museum, some great, some not so much... [Content warning: not live owls]
There were a lot of owl specimens on display at the museum. Primarily, I enjoyed it for the ability to compare the sizes between the species I haven't seen in person yet.
Also, while I prefer animals to be alive, these allow me to get much closer than would typically be possible.
With that said, taxidermy seems to have come a very long way over the years.
This Great Horned Owl hunting a skunk was a beautiful twilight diarama that almost looks alive. I took about a dozen pictures of it even though they all came out the same. It was an amazing work, and again, I'd prefer my owls and skunks alive, but this was beautiful for preserved specimens.
Here's just the owl itself:
While this display scores a 10/10, others were a bit less accurate to what I hope they looked like when they were alive. Let's review the others and see how others have done in their attempts to preserve these animals.
Note: Didn't realize just how many there were here until now! My fingers are tired! 😵💫
Inuktitut word for Snowy Owl.
Contains no owl and is cute, so 10/10!
Check out that Wikipedia link for the history. It's only a few decades old, but has an interesting history.
I honestly thought I was looking at one of the 'less accurate' attempts at taxidermy while scrolling..... 🤣
Pair of Screechies 7/10
Pretty good work on both. Red morph looks good and is pretty close to an 8, but grey morph looks a bit too much like Yoda, so I gotta take a point off.
Snowy Owl 2
3/10
This owl looks to have been stuffed with a Mr Peanut figure. I disapprove...
Saw Whet 2/10
The only thing in this guy's favor is I can tell what species it is. The body looks fine, but the head looks like something has happened to this guy in transport over the years or something. I feel bad for this one.
Saw Whet 2
5/10
Great improvement over the other, but still pretty rough. Must be harder to work on something so small. Still far from good.
Tawny Owl 8/10
You can see Owl from Winnie the Pooh below him. This was in a special display of storybook animals and the real animals they are based on. Was happy to get to see a Tawny at all since we don't have them in North American. Pretty good job on this one as well. Eyes a little lifeless, but they are black after all. Pretty good job on shape and great plumage.
Great Grey Owl
No Score
I've never seen one of these in person before. I just checked out a few pics online to compare this specimen to, and this still looks like an Great Grey head on a Barred Owl body to me. I don't feel I can fairly judge this one.
Great Horned Owl 3
7.9/10
A lot of good stuff going on here, and I really want to love this one, but the face seems to have an unnatural expression.
Long Eared Owl 8/10
Would have preferred a mystical or quizzical look to angry, and LEOs are one of my favorites, but did job on this one as it is. As the only Long Ear they had, at least it didn't make me sad like some of the others did.
Barred Owl 2
6.5/10
A little big on the head here... Body done fine though.
Pair of Snowy Owls
5/10
I forget if these were in the Inuit exhibit or what, but these just look like birds they found laying around. They're accurate as far as that, but there isn't much more to say.
Short Eared Owl 9/10
I was excited to see they had a Shortie! This one was done with care, and while not as good as the GHO, it was really nice. I saw this one before I saw the GHO and thought this was as good as it was going to get.
Snowy Owl 6.5/10
So this one isn't bad, but I didn't feel it captured any of the charm of a Snowy. This one just is what it is. It was nice to get a feel of the size of it as one of the bigger owls, and the feet are cool to look at up close, but it has no excitement to it. Lifeless even for a stuffed bird. I'd hoped for better.
Barn Owl 2
7/10
Not as pretty as the first Barn Owl. Decent, but kinda strange pose.
Barred Owl 7/10
Bottom of the good range. It's alright. The head shape looks a little off, but still better than a lot of the others. You can tell someone tried, but it looks like good amateur work. Still not very alive looking, but good for a specimen.
Barn Owl 8/10
Definitely in the decent range here. Nice specimen to begin with, and solid work on the preservation. Not quite as alive as the Shortie, but still good. This one is a successful job, but it isn't perfect.
Great Horned Owl 2
7.5/10
This one isn't bad. The specimen is nice, the shape is pretty good, though looks a little thin. I really love the coloration, and compared to the others, this one has a really good face and the eyes are very realistic. Weird positioning of the feet, and no plumicorns. It's alright to decent.
Hey, this is near me. I should go, if not just for the stuffed toy ookpik.
You should! I think it was almost as good as the Smithsonian! The dinosaurs here are amazing.
The National Aviary and the owl bathroom at The Zenith I posted are all there too. You could do all 3 in a day if you wanted. If you had 2 days, is add the Phipps Conservatory as well if you like plants too.
Short Eared Owl 2
8/10
Pretty good job again on another Shorty. Looks slightly crosseyed though. Since owls can't move their eyes, that's pretty easy to spot. Otherwise a good job here.
Ok, "ookpik" is officially my new favorite word
I like it's easy to pronounce. 😅
It is a cute little guy. I may have to pick one up somewhere.
Taxidermied animals always kinda creep me out. Some of these are very unfortunate looking. (My poor saw-whets.) That GHO diorama looks pretty nice though.
Modern ones are pretty good. I think it was more your amateur scientist doing it themself back in the day, so some of these old ones are not so hot, and I always hope they met their end naturally and weren't killed to be turned into this.
