I am a beginner in bird taxidermy. My question is: Is there a way to calculate the size of a given bird's eye? That is in order to choose the right size of artificial eyes. Any input would be appriciated. Thanks in advance.
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Damian,
Many of the supply catalogs give this info along with wire sizes for wings and legs for both flying and standing mounts. All listed by species. Try Research Mannikins, they have a good chart. Terry
There is one book for birds of North America, that written by Otto Epping who worked for a while at Carnegie Museum of Natural History and copies are available from Tohikon Eyes. The European eyes are covered by a book by Rudolph Piechockie, a Praeparator from former East Germany written in 1965. Both are useful at times.
I have been going to re-do the Epping book for a number of years and have talked with people at Tohikon about it, but have not yet had the time. Birds eyes have a skeletal element in them, the Sclerotic Ring (eye Ring) which provides an EXACT means of measuring the diameter of the eye. Using a large reference collection of skeletons (we currently have about 15,000), and measuring the sclerotic for each species and combining this with a photographic database like VIREO, or a picture file, a more complete book could be made. Mostly Eppings book is close, but for a number of species the actual size can vary by 1-2 mm, which is significant if the size is in the 6-8mm range. He also does not have all the species represented in North America that reside here (though most taxidermists will only mount game birds and captively reared aviary birds).
Older Taxidermy books and catalogues often had measurements of bird eyes of commonly mounted birds, but often the sizes were also too large, and they routinely had pupils which were too large for the iris. Some species because of the area they typically inhabit have routinely pi-point pupils, and others are routinely large (like Owls, but not so doing the daytime hours).
Some recent books have some sizes listed for certain species, such as Advanced Taxidermy by P.A. Oconner, the WASCO bird taxidermy book, etc.
Be sure to use photographs of birds, or record the eye color immediately upon death to choose the appropriate color. There is a great bit of variation among subspecies (races) or actual individuals of a given species of birds, but it is easier to use the standard "accepted" color, especially is you are having it judged at a competition.
A New book, printed in a very small run, was one called Animal Eyes Colors, by Morgan Worthy. Paragraph 1 of his introduction:
"A database of adult eye colors (iris colors) for species of animals has been developed by recording information listed in field guides of amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. Eye colors were found for about 55% of birds species (in the world) and only about 5% of species in the other three classes. The total sample contains eye colors for 5620 species."
The database was not developed for taxidermy but instead for use as a possible phylogenetic character in a cladistic or behavior study for systematics. He has numerous tables of mean eye darkness vs. aerial feeders, hunting strategies, etc. besides the actual database.
I contacted him last year to find if copies of his thesis were available, and last I knew he was negoitiating to put the data on a web cite, but I don't know if it has been done yet.
I realize as a beginner, you don't care about any of this crap, but it is a fascinating topic to me, one that strikes at the heart of deciding if a taxidermist is an artist or a copier of nature. One great taxidermist I know likes to use an eye size routinely 2-3 mm smaller than actual on a duck mount - the artistic approach. A judge should dock him points because it is not accurate to life - BUT is he an artist or a copier of nature?
Short answer - buy a WASCO book from this cite.
The Taxidermologist
Thanks to Terry and The taxidermologist. Even though I am a beginner I think that the Taxidermist should be both an artist and a copier of nature. Is not perfectness tried to be achieved in taxidermy? Also taxidermologist I don't think that what you wrote is crap. If a topic is at heart it never is crap. Also I do not live in America. I actually live in Malta an island in the mediterranian from Europe. So it is not that north American species do not interest me but they are quite unavailable over here! That was the main reason for my question. Does any one have some suggestion. THANKS!
I listed the author above for you. The Precise citation:
Piechocki, Rudolf. 1979. (1965) Augenkatalog der Vogel Europas. Sonderausgabe Nr. 1 der Zeitschrift DER PRAPARATOR. 2., inhaltlich unveranderte Auflage. Bochum 1979. Contact some Germans - they are listed in the site at the end of taxidermist web pages in the Net Home.
Piechocki gives bird eyes in Scientific names of birds (universally accepted as the correct name) and common names in 5 languages where they are available. The journal Der Praparator might perhaps still have this book available. O'conner above is an English text and may have some overlap with you, but I feel he uses black far too much. Colors of eyes appear black from a distance, but close up they may be dark brown. As mentioned above, record the eye color quick, the color will fade in a short time, and the pupil opens instantly.
You may get some of the older European Ornithology Books. In the older days, most ornithology texts gave complete descriptions of soft part colors (feet, eyes, mouth, beak, etc.) written out, and you could compare them with old color standards to get the standardized color. Ridgway, the chief ornithologist at our Smithsonian Institution from about 1890 to 1920, published a comprehensive text of birds of North America with complete descriptions of eyes, and included a color chart in the text, and later a complete standard catalogue of colors. Certainly not as comprehensive as the Munsell color standards, but adequate. The AMNH published three color books back in the 1980's when the AOU had the Centennial Meeting by Smyth I think. These may still be available by book dealers and could be carried in the field to compare with birds observed through binoculars or captive birds in aviaries.
I apologize for being defensive about writing detailed postings, but I have been criticized more than once for it. You might point out in future postings that you are from Malta, as most information is given assuming the poster is from North America.
Good Luck.