From Nature

A totally serendipitous find. There happened to be a swallow's nest in te eaves of the building where I worked, and one of the babies managed to fall right next to an ant's nest, where people didn't walk in an otherwise heavily trafficked area. The ants picked the skeleton clean, and the sun dried up the remaining ligaments so the little guy remained articulated, and, as far as I can tell, complete. Sorry about the small, kind of blurry photograph; my camera doesn't have a macro function and he's only about an inch across!



X-posted to curio_collector, wonder_cabinet and furhideandbone

English damselfly photos including wing close-ups at my dreamwidth journal (and flickr):

http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/…

As the snow melts (hopefully for good), I've been getting outside as much as possible, to see what I can scavenge...

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Hope everyone's having happy wanderings in nature!

This Is Cross posted to several communities. I have a question about starfish. I am working on building a specimen cabinet with a specific collection in each in one or two drawers.(like a drawer just of different seed pod plants, one of just a certain class of insect, and so on and so forth)kind of like this:

http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00…

Well in one of the drawers, I am going to have different types of starfish. I got in several starfish the other day and they stink like crazy! My question is how do I get rid of the funk? I know you can boil shells, but what about starfish? I don't want to bleach them, because I want them to retain their natural color. Does anyone know how I can accomplish this? It's a pretty bad odder or I would just let it go!

Howdy and happy new year!

Yesterday I went out for a walk through the woods, in the same area where I found a few deer skulls in October. With the warm weather (50°F!), all the snow was melting, so I thought I'd look for some shed antlers. I followed deer trails, found bedding areas, and what do you know... I found not one, but two shed antlers!

 I grew up in the woods, but for the past five and a half years, I've been living in cities (for college and now jobs). Needless to say, I miss the woods a lot and also being able to collect natural objects easily. Anyone else in this situation? Got any tips for finding stuff in the city?

Here's my advice: Rivers! In the last city I lived in, I was near a river, and there were several places where I could get down to the shore to scavenge. I found lots of bones washed up, in addition to other cool stuff like antique ceramic pieces, old bottles, and sometimes even parts of antique dolls. This was a smallish city, so my "hunting" grounds weren't really picked over by other people, and I had lots of access to riverfront due to it being adjacent to parks, cemeteries, and abandoned property.

Now I live in a bigger city, and I'm not having much luck! I've been down to the closest river, but it didn't look like there was anything of interest washed up, and most of the river is adjacent to commercial or private property anyway. There is a nature preserve I've been meaning to check out, but I'm feeling frustrated! So what do you guys do when you want to bone hunt in the city?

Also, a pic of my city bones behind the cut: ( Collapse )

Hi Guys!  

Underneath a 1st floor balcony in my apartment complex, there's been this dead squirrel. I've been told it was there since this summer. And I walked past it every day, and I really, REALLY wanted it! I would much rather be around live animals then dead ones, and I personally would not be ok with purposefully killing an animal to have some part of it.
But I can't pass up this little guy, I mean, wait till you see the photos. The tail is so adorably neat.

So yesterday, I got me some gloves and swiped a plastic target bag from my roommate and I acquired the squirrel! Now, I just really want the skeleton, which seems to be all... well connected with the exception of a little paw, which is kind of dangly.

I've been looking at tutorials online on how to clean it, but I'm not sure how to clean it form this particular stage, I don't want to damage him, because the little bones are all so fragile!
SO I was wondering if I could have some advice!!! I just want the skeleton and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. As long as I can be wearing gloves, heh.

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About a month ago I went to Pocono Environmental Education Center.

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kcanadensis   and I have been exploring as much as we can before it gets too cold. One of my favorite places to explore is an area that isn't really frequented by the public, but has several different key habitats, one of which (a fen) isn't very common in the area. And it's full of deer:


We found two deer skulls the first day we went out... one of the skulls (the first pictured) was all that was left of the animal. It had been there for a long time... it was very chewed-up and bleached out.

We also encountered some critters! Steph found a rather-large millipede in the leaf litter, and then discovered a very large slug in the brain cavity of the second deer skull!


We returned a couple days later and found a third deer skull, as well:

Hello everyone! Ever since kcanadensis  and I moved, we haven't been able to get outside quite as often... nevertheless, we've found some things, here and there.