A couple of days ago I featured some pictures of two Cock-of-the-Rock species. As Paul Demkovich was sharing his photographs he included the one of a tray of Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock skins he saw at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History (which houses over a half-million bird skins for scientific study).
Under normal circumstances I don’t allow photographs of dead birds but this one reminded me of a book I recently read titled, “The Feather Thief” by Kirk Johnson. This true-life detective story chronicles a brilliant young man’s obsession with the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying and how it lead him to break into a museum and steal priceless bird skins just so he had the feathers he need to create his intricate feathered-hooks (and to sell feathers to others obsessed with the fly-tying so he could buy a new flute). How valuable were the skins? Some of them were collected by Charles Darwin and used to support his theory of Evolution! The author heard about the theft while he was fly-fishing in northern New Mexico and it led him to England where the theft took place. Our DuPage Bird Club book club thoroughly enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to birders and non-birders alike.
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