Big birds and bitty bones

4/23/12

Today Dr. Kirchman and I had another fun day in the lab. We decided that a few more bird skeletons were ready to emerge from the ammonia solution and be boxed and labeled. However, this time, I would have to do a little bit more of the work by myself. While one jar containing a bird skeleton was rinsing in the sink to wash out all of the stinky ammonia solution, Dr. Kirchman had me label some boxes and place bird skeletons we had done the previous week inside of them. While I was very nervous about the quality of my handwriting (which ironically gets much worse whenever I'm worried it is going to look messy) I successfully completed two boxes. Then we picked through the bird in the sink, making sure none of the bones were missing. Then we had to remove any remaining tissue or tendons from the bird. This, luckily, was not too difficult with the two smaller birds we did. However, after cleaning up those two birds and leaving them to dry on the blotting paper, Dr. Kirchman and I were only left with two humongous birds. I reluctantly dragged a giant bird skeleton into the sink, uncertain about the arduous task ahead and began to rinse it out. While the big bird :) was rinsingDr. Kirchman asked me to label the bones of the three smaller birds we had just put in the boxes. Each bird has an identification number and that identification number needs to be labeled on as many bones as possible so that in case the bones were dropped, one would still be able to identify which bones went with which bird. The problem: all three of the birds I worked on were minuscule.

The bone I am holding which is the skull was one of the largest bones I had to write on. I think I wrote some of the tiniest numbers I ever had in my life, and luckily I wrote those numbers successfully. Dr. Kirchman even jokingly suggested that if I ever dropped out of school, I could get a job labeling bones :). I truly did not know that my handwriting could successfully be that small. After labeling all three skeletons, the big bird was finally all rinsed off. Dr. Kirchman and I cleaned up the skeleton which was much harder to clean that the smaller bird skeletons. We even needed scissors to cut the tendons and even then it was difficult. Dr. Kirchman and I removed as much of the tissue and tendons as we could and then put it back in the jar and added some fresh ammonia solution so that it could soak for a little longer. All over all, it was a pretty fun day in the lab.