An open wooden drawer displaying five rows of six groups of 4 and 5 small blue and brown eggs.
Vertebrate Biology

Birds

We have about 123,000 bird specimens and other items, comprising mainly skins and egg sets, and fewer skeletons and spirit specimens, giving a broad representation of species from around the world.

Bird skins

Bird skins (c.68,000) are mainly from Britain and the rest of the western Palaearctic. This collection includes around 100 type specimens, which are the specimens on which scientific names are based. Important historical collections include E.V. Baxter & L.J. Rintoul, P.A. Clancey, W.E. Clarke, L. Dufresne, H.W. Feilden & J.A. Harvie-Brown, Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, W. Serle, F.W. Smalley, J.H. Stenhouse, R.G. Wardlaw-Ramsay, H. Whistler, J.I.S. Whitaker and the Zoological Society of London. There are good series of seabirds from oil spills, e.g. Esso Bernicia, Braer and Sea Empress.

Rows of small green-bellied bird skins with yellow heads lined up on their backs in a white drawer. A hand is holding a label attached to one of the bird's feet.
Credit: © Duncan McGlynn

Birds’ eggs

We have about 47,000 clutches of birds’ eggs, which are mainly from Britain and the rest of the western Palaearctic. These date from the 1790s to the present day. Important collections include H.M.S. Blair, W.D.H. Brown & D.A. Humphrey, R.J.B. Christian, J.J. Dalgleish, P.R.K. Davis, G. Douglas, L. Dufresne, H.W. Feilden & J.A. Harvie-Brown, G.H.M. Franklin, F. Grant, K.C. Jacob, O.A.J. Lee, J. Little, J.H. McNeile, R. Nichols, J. Piers Dutton, D.A. Ratcliffe, Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, W. Serle and R. Waddell. The McNeile collection is exceptional for the quality of its associated archive as well as its wide geographical coverage of the western Palaearctic.

We also receive modern specimens, principally infertile eggs from raptor groups in Scotland, and have an extensive collection of egg shells from the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (now Centre for Ecology and Hydrology), which were collected originally to test for pesticides and other chemical residues.

An open wooden drawer displaying pairs of brown eggs in rows.
Credit: © Duncan McGlynn

Bird skeletons

We have approximately 6,000 complete and partial bird skeletons from both wild and captive birds. Important series of aged and sexed skeletons have been acquired as a result of oil spills, e.g. Braer and Sea Empress, or natural casualties, e.g. Common Buzzard Buteo buteo.

Nests

We have a small collection of nests.

Spirit specimens

We also have a small, mainly historical, collection of birds preserved in alcohol.