Feather & Down Taxidermy

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Feather & Down Taxidermy

Professional bird taxidermy services. Over 30 years experience.
(16)

11/14/2024

After that goose hybrid I took a month ago ... today was another hybrid day, my first year with two 50/50 hybrids in the same year ... not my first of this mix, but still a nice mallard/black first generation hybrid duck. Him and bufflehead made a decent drake limit today.

10/17/2024

Here is a pair of greater bluebill (Scaup) finished up recently.

10/06/2024

Thought I would bump this back to the top for this time of season ... this shows a good way to freeze the ducks to limit any damage and preserve as long as possible.

10/04/2024

A couple nights ago I did a sunset hunt, no shots at ducks, but as usual, there always seems to be some geese around. This was a first time for me ... got myself a hybrid goose, I have mounted a few, but none of my own ... I sent a pic or two to Ben Pierce and his opinion it is a Canada X Greylag hybrid ... I expect the big orange feet, oversized skull and bill and multicoloured bill show it is a hybrid and not a piebald. I skinned it the next day to mount for myself at a later date (will have to cast the bill for it), and got a stark reminder of why I am not taking in larger geese at the moment ... my hands and mid back are quite sore today, the length of time to skin and especially flesh these beasts have become more difficult as I age. The most impressive thing (to myself anyway) was that I identified it as a likely hybrid out of a group of 4 geese, at a range limit to shoot at 25 minutes after sunset while they flew through the tree line of across the cove ... the fact that I had the wherewithal to pick out that extra white in the head shows that my distance vision is not deteriorating near as fast as my hand joints.

10/04/2024

Hello all! If anyone has been trying to get ahold of my by phone in the last couple weeks and not got a pick up, my phone has been out most of the time due to the incompetence of Bell Canada ... working on getting it fixed, but it will not be until next week at the earliest ... so if anyone wants to get hold of me or knows someone who has called but not got through, feel free to contact me here, I still have internet obviously. Thanks, Steve Dingman.

10/01/2024

Here is a drake bufflehead finished up and headed home.

10/01/2024

Here are two mounts for the same client ... a laying down drake redhead, and a swimming drake goldeneye. For backings for these wall mounts, I happened to have two red cedar cookies that came from the same log, likely consecutive, so they match each other well for the client.

09/29/2024

Thought I would bring this back to the top to try to help with what to look for on drake wood ducks.

09/03/2024

Here is a little screech owl finished up. This one had severe damage from the car accident it was involved in ... one eye socket was obliterated, several holes in awkward locations in the head, the guts were blown out the butt hole, and the skin was torn around one leg almost all the way ... made it tough to work on and needing lots of repair. The client is a carver looking to use it for a competition carving coming up, so I wanted to do my best to repair it and get it mounted, but it did reinforce the reasons why at this time I have not been taking in raptors until I can get more caught up than I presently am ... the damages are often significant on them since most are killed by cars.

08/09/2024

A drake gadwall finished up ready to head home.

08/08/2024

Here is a new one for me ... this old squaw had a deformity I have not seen before ... one of the long centre tail feathers grew in upside-down. When I looked at it frozen and thawed out, I figured it was shot damage that hit the shaft or root of the feather and broke it ... but when I got the bird inside-out, I could see there was no damage at all to the connective tissue holding the tail feathers together, and no damage to the shaft of the feather outside the skin ... so the feather must have grown in this way, and is completely upside-down.. The second feather on that side of the tail was also missing, but not due to shot damage ... so I suspect there was damage in the past that caused the growth follicle for the second feather to be missing, and also caused the feather next to it to grow in deformed.

06/19/2024

Here is a combo redhead/canvasback mount ... the redhead was well plumed, but the canvasback is one of those birds that are a taxidermist nightmare ... the can was in full molt, which makes it quite difficult to hold feathers in the skin and to get it to fluff (not to mention one side of the bird took alot of shot damage) ... as a taxidermist, we do what we can to hide any deficiencies or damage.

06/01/2024

Another wood duck finished up and ready to head home.

05/31/2024

A drake wood duck finished up and ready to return.

05/29/2024

A drake pintail finished up recently.

05/27/2024

Here is a drake wigeon finished up. This one has a darker phase to the head, the white doesn't extend along the top of the head and the green is not as bright as many I have mounted ... there seems to be alot of variation in the head colours on wigeon.

04/21/2024

Here is a pair of wood ducks in a glass case. I finished up cleaning the glass this morning to put on the piece, then contacted the client and it has already left the shop on its travels home.

04/20/2024

A blonde hen mallard finished up recently ready to go back to the client. This is one blonde that has the "bronzing" of the speculum feathers, they are not the normal blue colour ... this seems to be common among the blonde genetics of mallards I have worked on.

Address

RR#4
Picton, ON
K0K2T0

Telephone

+16134767981

Website

http://www.fd-taxidermy.ws/

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