Flights of fancy

RAMM’s bird collections image

The size, appearance, behaviour and abundance of birds make them one of the most studied and popular groups of animals alive today. Having evolved from feathered dinosaurs, their adaptation for flight has enabled them to exploit new ecological niches and migrate across all continents.

These particular environmental conditions that favour organisms with certain adaptations and life strategies.terrestrial vertebrates of the Mesozoic era. Birds were the only branch of dinosaurs that survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event (65 million years ago).Regular seasonal movements undertaken by many species of birds, usually as avoidance of food shortages.

Drawer of bird skins

 

 

This has also made them popular with collectors and RAMM has a collection of about 8,500 specimens. The collections at RAMM are made up of many different birds from across the world. Bird specimens have been preserved in various ways for both aesthetic and scientific purposes.

Taxidermy specimens have been mounted in life-like positions to represent behaviour and study skins are prepared so that they can be easily stored in cabinets and organised taxonomically.

 

 

 

 

 

Bird feather close upThe study of birds is called ornithology and has given us many insights into processes underlying evolution and sensory ecology, especially sexual selection. The iridescent plumage of male birds, such as peacocks, has been the subject of much research and is also what makes bird specimens such attractive objects for display.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is also an extensive egg collection which illustrates how birds’ eggs differ in shape, texture and colour. Birds’ eggs can also give us an insight into the complex patterns of natural selection, for example cuckoo’s eggs have evolved to look like the eggs of the species that they parasitise.

Drawer of bird eggs

This is the way organisms communicate with each other and other species, and the differet ways animals percieve their world, for example electroreception, echolocation, sight and sound are all senses used by animals.from taxonomyThis is the optical effect by which some surfaces reflect bright colours that change depending on the angle that they are being perceived. Iridescence is caused by three dimensional structures that are arranged in repeating patterns at a scale that is smaller than the wavelength of light.the process of change in the inherited characteristics of a related population of organisms.This is the name for preserving animals for display purposesthe branch of biology relating to an organisms relationship with its environment.the feather covering of a bird described by the distribution, arrangement, structure and colour of the feathers.