These fossils were found in a quarry in Solnhofen, Germany, which was once a series of shallow, tropical lagoons. The environmental conditions at Solnhofen resulted in remarkably preserved fossils of Late Jurassic plants, invertebrates, fish, reptiles, and bird species like these fossils on display in Dinosaurs in Their Time.
Blogs about Birds
Birds are incredibly important to Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The museum's Section of Birds contains nearly 190,000 specimens of birds. The most important of these are the 555 holotypes and syntypes. The Section of Birds staff also cares for approximately 196 specimens of extinct birds as well as specimens of many rare species collected decades—if not more than a century—ago.
Hummingbird Bands
At Powdermilll Nature Reserve, researchers use different sized bands for different sized birds, which helps them track the movement and lifespan of populations.
The band pictured above is a hummingbird band. It is so small that the customary nine-digit band number is reduced to five digits with a letter prefix.
Powdermill Nature Reserve’s avian research center is part of Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s biological research station in Rector, Pennsylvania. The research center operates a bird banding station, conducts bioacoustical research, and performs flight tunnel analysis with the goal of reducing window collisions.
Eastern Bluebird
This pretty little eastern bluebird was banded this year at Powdermill Nature Reserve’s bird banding lab in Rector, Pa.
Although they are common winter residents in a field just over the hill from the banding lab, eastern bluebirds only occasionally stray into the banding area, so it was a pleasant surprise to find this individual in one of our nets.
Powdermill Nature Reserve’s avian research center is part of Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s biological research station in Rector, Pennsylvania. The research center operates a bird banding station, conducts bioacoustical research, and performs flight tunnel analysis with the goal of reducing window collisions.
Lawrence’s Warbler
Lawrence’s Warbler
This bright yellow bird is a rare hybrid that was banded at Powdermill Nature Reserve, the museum’s environmental research center, in spring 2017.
This hybridization occurs when a golden-winged warbler mates with a blue-winged warbler. This individual was just the 12th Lawrence’s warbler banded at Powdermill in our 55 years of banding.
Powdermill Nature Reserve’s avian research center is part of Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s biological research station in Rector, Pennsylvania. The research center operates a bird banding station, conducts bioacoustical research, and performs flight tunnel analysis with the goal of reducing window collisions.
Herons and Henry David Thoreau
by Patrick McShea
Two hundred years after the birth of naturalist Henry David Thoreau, his writing continues to challenge us to be better observers of animals, plants, weather patterns, sounds, and landscapes.
Although the Concord, Massachusetts native would insist that such emulation occur outdoors, selected quotes from his works can add much to our appreciation of details preserved in museum exhibits.
Consider, for example, Thoreau’s precise word-rendering of a subtle shade of color. He described the plumage of a great blue heron’s wing as “a tempered blue as of the sky and dark water commingled.” In Population Impact, museum visitors can verify the accuracy of the poetic description while viewing the great blue heron taxidermy mount displayed in the third-floor exhibition.
A more challenging exercise involves viewing the recently restored, century-old diorama of nesting green herons now displayed at the first-floor level of the Grand Staircase.
In an 1840 journal entry about observing a green heron along a New England river, Thoreau expressed envy for the wading bird’s experience of the world:
“It has looked out from its dull eye for so long, standing on one leg, on moon and stars sparkling through silence and dark, and now what a rich experience is its! What says it of stagnant pools, and reeds, and damp night fogs? It would be worth while to look in the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours and in such solitudes. When I behold that dull yellowish green, I wonder if my own soul is not a bright invisible green. I would fain lay my eye side by side with its and learn of it.”
Patrick McShea works in the Education and Visitor Experience department of Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences of working at the museum.
European Roller
The bright blue European Roller (Coracias garrulus) breeds in southern and eastern Europe through to Siberia and winters in Africa.
These specimens from Carnegie Museum of Natural History are preserved as both study skins and a taxidermy mount. The Section of Birds is home to several drawers of eight species of rollers in the genus Coracias, which are part of the museum’s large holding of birds from Africa and Europe and were collected between 1891 and 1982.