A Bird In the Hand…Viewing Specimens at the Moore Laboratory of Zoology
So, I don’t know if you heard, but last Saturday was Obscura Day. It’s a worldwide celebration of… well…obscurity. Basically anything that’s off the beaten path. It’s put together by one of my favorite websites, Atlas Obscura, and is probably one of the most unique celebrations of the year. Multiple cities take part, offering various activities. Los Angeles had a plethora to choose from and I decided to go for “Examining Bird Specimens and the Moore Laboratory of Zoology.”
And boy was I glad I did. For only $5 I was able to see so many rare bird specimens including some extinct ones. The lab was located at Occidental College, a place I don’t think I had ever heard of before. It’s a quaint campus located in Eagle Rock that is very, very hilly. I learned this when I got lost trying to locate the lab. But that’s neither here nor there.
So, in the lab the curator, John McCormack, told us the history of the collection – it was put together by this guy
Some of the specimens date back to the late 1800’s, a time when there were not so many regulations on collecting specimens.
and don’t smell so great thanks to the old habit of preserving them in mothballs. But they are in excellent condition for having been dead for decades.
Especially, for having gone extinct several years ago (only some of the species).
That’s a large woodpecker (totally not the official name, I don’t remember it). Much larger than the current ones around.
There were also skeletons, eggs, and nests to see.
Yes, that’s an old cornflake box. A Mexican cornflake box to be exact. Back in the day the ornithologists would use any container they could. Is it bad that this box was my favorite “specimen?”
It was very, very interesting. Unfortunately, it’s not a collection that’s open to the public and the next Obscura Day is a year away…I figured I’d tell you now cuz if I waited a year I’d probably say that woodpecker was a raven or something. AND in the meantime you can check out Atlas Obscura and see if there’s anything cool in your area to see.