Gull

So another specimen has made its way through the beetles and has cleaned up remarkably well. This gull is interesting in several ways; firstly it's asymmetric; the left side and right side aren't identical, which is not quite what you'd expect. (Maybe it was left winged?) Secondly this is the biggest specimen I have that I could clean with beetles, my chicken-sized specimens were simply too large to dry fast enough. As a result of this the specimen actually doesn't smell of anything which I find curious. (Usually there is *some* lingering smell, not 'Oh dear lord, corpse!' odor but a vague 'deathy' odor, the odor of funeral parlors. A month or so in the sun tends to 'burn' it off. But this? No odor at all.)

When you look at birds you really do see how very unrelated to us mammals they are, the entire skeletal structure is different. Hollow bones, a giant breast bone, wings instead of paws, remarkable, that's all I have to say.

Also yeah, it's in a frame I built. If only I was as good at carpentry as taxidermy. (And I'm not that good at taxidermy!)