Narrator: The Smithsonian Natural History Museum
houses over 600,000 bird specimens
from the last 200 years.
And new specimens are added each month,
thanks to the detailed work of specialists who preserve,
skin, and maintain every bird in the collection.
But most of these birds never see the museum floor.
So why do they need to be perfectly preserved?
The answer: research,
whether it's identifying birds killed by airplanes
or discovering evolutionary changes in duck bills.
We're not just preparing this bird for use tomorrow.
We're preparing this bird for use
for hundreds of years from now.
Narrator: We went to the Smithsonian
to see how one specimen in the skins collection
is added, prepared, and used for generations to come.
It starts with acquisition.
Chris: It says here on the label that this ostrich was sent
by King Menelik as a present to President Roosevelt.
Narrator: Specimens are usually donated
by people or organizations.
This California condor was donated
by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
This bird came from President Theodore Roosevelt's
personal collection.
And this Cooper's hawk
died while crashing into a building window.
It was donated back in 2017
and is about to get its spotlight in an upcoming exhibit,
but it was initially stored in this freezer.
Christina: So, it's on a left shelf. ♪ Da-ta-dah. ♪
Narrator: From there, our hawk
is taken up to the prep lab
into the skilled hands of museum specialists
like Christina and her husband, Brian.
Christina: Brian, did you do that?
Brian: Yes, I did put the cotton in the mouth.
Married couple's spat.
Brian: This specimen is 9,926.
So I've prepared at least that many birds and mammals.
When you're at about 10,000,
it shows that you've been doing it
for at least probably 20 years or so.
It was a fun exercise, and it actually worked.
Narrator: Blindfolded or not,
the specialists first thaw, weigh, and measure the hawk.
And then they pick up a scalpel
to start separating the skin from the muscles and fat.
Brian: Since these are going to be stored
as dried specimens, we want to remove
as much of the muscle from the specimen that we can.
Narrator: Brian removes the skin
from the body of the bird,
discarding the soft tissues and oil glands,
which would cause the specimen to rot.
And it's crucial to get every piece of fat out
without damaging the skin,
since these specimens are meant to last for years to come.
That's where gentler tools like his hands become useful.
Brian: You have to go very slow, methodical
to get the skin off without ripping it.
I'm pushing the skin rather than pulling it,
so I'm not stretching it.
Narrator: Brian also uses corncob dust
throughout the process to absorb any body fluids
so the specimen is kept clean.
New people use a lot less dust,
and more experienced people just cover it with dust.
Narrator: When removing the smaller parts of the bird,
like the head or the eyes ...
Brian: The angle of the scalpel also makes a big difference.
You notice I'm cutting away from the skin.
There's been times where when you grab the eye
it squirts at you.
Narrator: Sometimes birds that have more fat on their skin
need to go through additional cleaning.
Christina: All this white goopy stuff, this is all fat.
That needs to come off. Otherwise,
it will get rancid,
and then it will acidify,
and it will literally just ooze out of the skin.
Narrator: They use this fat wheel machine
to remove all the fat until you can see the feather tracts.
This takes a little bit of practice,
because if you press too hard, you will rip the skin.
Narrator: Once the fat is cleared,
more corncob dust is used to absorb the moisture,
and then the specimen is washed and dried.
You want to see me blow the sawdust off?
Producer: Yes, I do. Christina: OK.
[chuckling]
All right.
So, with this, we do it in the fume hood,
because, as you'd imagine,
I'm going to blow a lot of dust everywhere.
Narrator: Christina uses a forced-air dryer
to blow off the sawdust
and a hair dryer to fluff up the feathers,
adding a nice sheen to them.
To get the bird presentation-ready,
Brian will first tie the wings together
to create a limited range of motion.
He approximates how far a Cooper's hawk
would've naturally spread their wings.
Brian: So, in the future, if somebody grabs the bird
and opens up the wings to see the underside of the wing,
by tying it, it'll make the specimen stronger.
Narrator: Now the specimen is ready to be
stuffed with cotton, recreating its original shape.
Brian: We're trying to make a specimen
that lasts forever and is strong.
So I'm not a tailor or a seamstress,
but I can sew up a bird pretty good.
We get the feathers,
make sure that they're arranged properly,
in the right order.
So that'll assist researchers later.
Narrator: The last step is pinning the bird
onto a board to dry into its permanent position.
Brian: However I end up pinning it,
that's the way it's going to look
the rest of its career at the Smithsonian.
It takes probably close to 100 birds
before somebody can go at it alone.
Once they reach 1,000 birds,
then we say that that person
is generally an experienced preparator
and they can teach other people very well.
Narrator: After 10 or so days,
this Cooper's hawk will be completely dried
and ready to debut on the exhibit floor.
The hawk will be just one of 20 specimens on display
for the "Lights Out" exhibit,
all birds who have died from flying into skyscraper windows.
And they'll eventually join the larger skins collection,
with over 470,000 specimens,
helping researchers from all around the world.
Like Lauren and Joshua,
researching how mating between domestic and wild ducks
has changed the size and structure of their bills,
or Jim with the Feather Identification Lab team.
He works with government agencies
to identify birds killed during air strikes.
We get about 10,000 strikes a year.
The busiest times are in the fall and the spring.
And this place, the division of birds,
is the perfect place for us to be,
because we have 80% of the world's bird species
represented in this collection.
So if there's a bird strike that happens in the world,
we likely have a specimen to match it up to.
This is a bird-strike sample,
the remnants of a bird-aircraft collision
that has been sent to us for us to identify.
So I can see that we've got a couple wing feathers here.
We've got a tail feather, we've got some body feathers.
So we can actually take this feather out
and match up these tail feathers
quite well to the barn swallow.
And we've got even these nice little peachy feathers
that were doing this.
Narrator: His findings are sent to airfield biologists
and engine manufacturers to adjust aircrafts
and reduce accidents.
This bird was collected back in 1878.
And so this bird was collected
before airplanes were even imagined
and put into this collection.
And now we're using it
to identify a bird-aircraft collision.
So we never know what these specimens
are going to get used for,
but that's really why it's important to keep them forever.
Narrator: A separate wings collection also helps
for deeper analysis of feathers.
Jim: Back in the old days they didn't make too many
spread wings or flat skins.
And us in the Feather Lab really like that,
because it allows us access to feathers
that occur under the wing
and access in different areas of the bird
where we might get a feather to, but it's very difficult
to get into a traditional museum skin.
Narrator: Other researchers might be exploring
the microbiomes found in the wings, like Gary.
He discovered that vulture wings
have a bacterial group called Deinococcus,
one of the toughest organisms
that can withstand high radiation.
So, when I've exposed this wing into full sun,
the temperature on a day like today
would be 90 degrees outside.
In about three minutes, the temperature on the surface
of this wing heats up to over 160.
And that probably explains why Deinococcus
is so dominant,
because it's one of the few bacterial groups
that can actually reproduce.
Narrator: At the Smithsonian, these are just two
of the collections within the bird division.
There's also the organ collection,
soaked in ethanol for preservation;
the skeletons, with each bone meticulously numbered;
and mounted birds
that retired from being on the exhibit floor.
All of these are timestamps
of the present bird population,
creating a record for future generations of researchers.
Brian: When the first bird preparators prepared birds,
they had no idea what DNA was.
Even though they didn't know that,
by doing a consistent bird prep,
it has enabled future researchers
to conduct research on birds.
And I wish I had a time capsule
to go into the future to see what our birds
are going to be used for 100 years from now.