Most birders recognize the value of bird specimens curated in research
museums. Carefully-preserved skins and tissue samples provide
innumerable data for understanding our bird-life. Many of us have had a
chance to ogle passenger pigeons and ivory-billed woodpeckers preserved
in museum drawers, but specimens of even the commonest birds provide all
kinds of useful data, and examples of these species are very useful.
        Take robins as an example. How have contaminations in their diet
changed over the past century? What are the distinctive plumage
characteristics of robins from different regions here? There are lots of
important research questions that can be answered only with new
specimens of this familiar species.
        In the old days, birders shot the birds they saw. They had poor optics,
and many species could be conclusively identified only in the hand, and
then were often preserved as specimens. Modern science has enabled us to
make far more useful studies possible with these old specimens, as well
as the dead birds that have hit our windows or are found along the
roadside. Modern curators learn a lot more from specimens than their
predecessors often did: analysis of stomach contents, DNA, stable
isotopes, etc., etc.
        The Ohio State University Museum is offering a new opportunity to
contribute to science, the Adopt-a-Bird program; see
http://www.ohiolightsout.org/adopt-a-bird/  They offer new incentives to
donate specimens to the Museum. Check it out.
Bill Whan

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