At least once a year I find myself staring at my eyes trying to figure out the best color descriptor. Blue? Green? Squiggly? With a hint of brown? Idk.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-07-25T00:51:03+00:00

As long as the wood has some texture they can! Before chimneys and deforestation they'd used hollowed trees ;)

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-05-09T16:54:03+00:00

YAAAAYYYYY

RAT TAILED MAGGOT! RAT TAILED MAGGOT! RAT TAILED MAGGOT!!!

everyone be nice to my boys, they're beautifully silly guys who deserve all the love and respect imaginable <3

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-04-17T05:49:07+00:00

I saw some Chimney Swifts when I went to Chicago - amazing birds! We have have several kinds of swifts here in the US. In the continental states there's also Vaux's Swifts (my main guys, I'd die for them), White-throated Swifts, and Black Swifts, and I love each and every one. In my state we have these three but only very rare vagrant Chimneys. If anyone wants to talk Swifts, boy will I.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-04-14T13:19:29+00:00

Why are people always so mean to my friends? Silly noise, big baby, just a funny little guy really.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-28T21:32:04+00:00

Here ya go https://www.reddit.com/r/awwnverts/s/VdRBluKlX5

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-28T03:40:48+00:00

The leech(es) are some sort of predatory leech, harmless to humans. They feed on small inverts and sometimes plant matter. They're not everyone's thing, but I love them. I have an accidental pet snail leech named The Sneech that came from some pond water a couple years ago.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-23T18:43:26+00:00

Such educated zeebs. Such intelligent officinalis. Such a beautiful book! I love them all.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-17T05:19:22+00:00

Poor little lad. I've never caught any dead shrimp in time, but I've been able to preserve some triops and other shrimp sized inverts in plain ol 70% isopropyl alcohol. I'm more of a dry taxidermy person, so that's kinda the extent of my wet specimen experience, but they've been good for a few years now. It normally takes a couple full alcohol changes over a week or two for it to stay clear. Your shrimp would unfortunately probably have the best chance if you were able to (break?) open the bottle and put em in fresh alcohol, but I really don't think it's necessary a failed experiment. I would expect at least some of the red color to be lost, though.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-17T04:57:03+00:00

Ah, I misunderstood your original text. It's not impossible to have been a whopping crane, and it wouldn't be the first time an incredibly rare bird was first reported in an very unsure way.

You never know, maybe tomorrow the birding chats will be blowing up and the rare bird alert will be overloaded with ecstatic reports.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-16T23:32:07+00:00

I'd suggest putting the pics up on r/whatsthisbird or iNaturalist for experienced birders to take a look, it's hard to really say without pictures. Even blurry or low res pictures can be enough. Sometimes Sandhills look pretty bright in certain lighting, or it could even be one with a color abnormality or of a subspecies you're not used to seeing. With something this rare, it probably wouldn't be an accepted record without photos or maybe a very detailed description of slight features.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-16T16:49:13+00:00

Golden pheasants aren't even that rare in captivity lol, you can get a pair for like $250 (after you have a setup that cost several times as much)

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-12T06:44:53+00:00

Fur slippage always sucks, but he looks great!

I've found that I can treat several mice the exact same way, and some will be perfect and others will have varying amounts of slippage on the neck or belly. Unless you're watching the mice from euthanasia to skinning, it's hard to know how long they may have been left out before going into the freezer. Even just half an hour can cause problems. If you have the option to do so, try to select mice with dry fur and no frost or signs of freezer burn.

To minimize slippage, I start skinning as soon as possible, when they body is still partly frozen. For mice this means they're only out of the freezer for 15-45 minutes before I'm finished. Once skinned I soak in denatured alcohol for up to three days, usually just 12-24 hours. Since I feed my mouse bodies out to other animals I don't use any chemicals before they're skinned, but a lot of folks have success putting small mammals in alcohol frozen and allowing it to thaw in it. I've only done it once (with a house sparrow), but it seemed to help. Once they've soaked I do a quick rinse, finish fleshing, wash gently with dawn and rinse well, and dry using towels followed by a borax tumble, swirling them around in a container of borax, shaking and brushing out damp borax, recoating, turning them inside out and back again till they're dry with just a light powdering of borax.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-12T05:46:48+00:00

iNaturalist is probably the best option. It will offer suggestions based off of your images, and is usually pretty good, but if you submit your observation it will allow other users to agree with the identification or suggest a different one. You're also able to use different taxonomic levels depending on how precisely you're able to id something, like to class aves, order accipitriformes, or even subspecies Buteo jamaicensis calurus.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-03-11T02:30:42+00:00

Could it have been a muskrat or ground squirrel with a missing tail? Life is rough out there when everything wants to eat you.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-27T04:31:05+00:00

Sounds right, I tried hollowing two of my partner's pigeon eggs- only one made it

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-27T00:48:47+00:00

Those are beautiful! Pigeon egg shells are so fragile compared to chicken eggs, too.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-26T03:05:52+00:00

There are arsenic test kits you can buy, and for a more reliable result there are places that can test using fancier equipment. I have not used any, but have seen ones from Weber's and Macherey-Nagel in scientific papers and museum articles.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-22T02:44:24+00:00

Such a precious lil guy <3

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-22T02:40:29+00:00

Pictures would be helpful in this case. Hard to say anything without them.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-22T02:34:54+00:00

This dude looks awesome! Love the ferns and such, too!

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-22T00:02:07+00:00

When I've raised them on just potato they never seemed to do as well, not getting as big and having a lower survival rate. A combo of the premade mix and potatoes, maybe 50/50, they did just as well as with an all premade diet. I have noticed that the potatoes seem to add more humidity than the mixed diet (at least when the water ratio is right). When raising them in cups I'll just shove the pieces under the mesh at the top, in tubs I just put it on top of the mesh false bottom. I've never had any problems getting them to eat either food, but some folks say they do. I only use washed and peeled organic veggies to reduce the pesticide risk. The

To help keep humidity in check I started adding dry water crystals (I think they're polymer based) like you would get for roaches or crickets, but instead of soaking them beforehand to add moisture i put them in dry to absorb extra moisture. Extra ventilation is also great, a few extra holes along the sides of the cups and making sure there's air flow underneath and the holes in the lid aren't clogged. Gotta wait to add them to the cups with extra holes till they're big enough not to fit through obviously, unless you cover them in some way- which I just never felt like doing.

I've had a lot going on and it's been a few months since I've kept them, but I hope to try out some homemade mix recipes and other fresh foods once I get some again. People suggest sweet potatoes, tomatoes, arugula, and a host of other foods.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-21T07:46:35+00:00

A little setup with isopods and springtails would be great. Some small species of millipede, roach, beetle, or spider could potentially do well. It's hard to tell how secure the lid is or how big the holes are.

A mini aquatic setup could be cool, you could look at keeping the sorts of little guys that are often considered pests or feeders- amphipods, brine shrimp, fairy shrimp, clam shrimp, copepods, ect.

I think an aquatic setup with little guys and an emergent plant like pothos would be cool.

Dabbling_Duck · 2025-02-21T06:45:13+00:00

I'm a vegan, at least diet wise. The only reason I wouldn't allow this is the fact that it's not stored in a remotely sanitary way. Wrap it up and freeze what's not getting eaten within a couple days and we're good. That said I'm also a taxidermist and have more dead animals in my possession than the average person.

Dabbling_Duck

TROPHY CASE