Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Two beautiful Sacred Kingfishers have come into the Discovery Centre in the last few days - sudden and unexplained demises, and both found in local backyards. Their passing won't go unremarked or wasted - they'll go into the ornithology collection, and may be turned into study skins or mounted specimens, for the use of researchers. Artists too, for that matter - we often have illustrators, sculptors and even jewellers coming in to access specimens from our collection for their studies and inspiration.

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

The beautiful plumage of these birds would seem to render them too glamorous for a suburban lifestyle, but in fact, these birds are widely distributed throughout Australia, in all but the most arid zones.

Keep an eye out for a flash of brilliant blue and turquoise in your backyard - you may be lucky enough to see one of these beautiful creatures.

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria

On Thursday, Melbourne Museum's Discovery Centre hosted a group of young art students along with a number of marine birds. The birds were set up on tables across the centre for the inspection of the students of Torquay College doing a cool program run by the Geelong Gallery which involved drawing things realistically by looking and copying. They'd already been upstairs to sketch the blue whale...

We were impressed not only by the final results (I wish I could draw!) but the quietness and concentration displayed by the budding artists - never before had we seen so many children so still, with only their wrists and pencils moving.

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria

This morning I arrived at work to find not one but three bird specimens arranged on the back table - two stuffed, one skeletal. One of the still-feathered specimens was a wedge-tailed eagle, glaring:  

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria

"Her name's Ginger," Jo explained, before informing me that all three of the birds were waiting for a visit from an artist who will examine their feet for the purposes of an artistic project in which she plans to sculpt the feet of various birds. In glowmesh. 

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria

Most folks' workspaces would contain a water-cooler, stationery cupboard, box of tissues, maybe even a fake plant here or there...

While the Discovery Centre is really no different with respect to these common office dwellers, I have found myself wondering today why I'm working away in the company of a pile of animal bones sitting in front of the cupboard behind me.

After a brief rummage, I discovered that, along with Philip and Jo, I am also working today along side a kangaroo, a wombat, a wallaby and a couple of koalas.

Of course, this is not an ongoing arrangement - these skeletons have been brought to the Discovery Centre in fulfilment of a collection access request from a member of the public who wanted to photograph the bones as part of their private research. Collection access requests can be made here. 

Having said that, I really, really hope no one wants to access anything from the arachnology collection...