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.

We get a lot of mail coming through this centre - photographs, requests for information, offers to donate items, insects to identify. In recent days, our mailbag has been leavened with some delightful letters from junior fans of the Museum. Here is a selection of our favourites:

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Kirby gave us some great feedback! Kirby's favourite things in the Museum are the dinosaur bones, followed closely by "the Phar Lap". I can tell you that the various relevant curators and managers were well chuffed, and that copies of this letter occupy pride of place on office walls. Kirby expresses an interest in working at the Museum "when I grow up" - Kirby, judging from the folk we work with, I don't think you need to wait to grow up...it doesn't seem to be a prerequisite of employment around here!

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

This batch of letters came from a grade one class in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. Not only does their handwriting put mine to shame, but all letters were carefully dated, politely opened with "Dear Sir or Madam", and signed off with "Yours sincerely". They embellished their letters with beautiful garden drawings, and each included a question. "Why are plants green?" (Chlorophyll - it's a pigment found in most plants that enables them to absorb energy from sunlight) and "What is Victoria's tallest tree, and how tall is it?" (Eucalyptus regnans, or the Mountain Ash, which can grow up to 100m tall!).

Thank you to all of our correspondents, and we look forward to more mailbag excitement.

We had a curious donation the other day - a well-dressed gentleman came in bearing a heavy plastic tub full of ice and one sadly-deceased echidna. He had found the echidna's body on the road when driving. He hadn't wanted to leave what was an almost-perfectly intact specimen for the crows to eat, thinking that the Museum might have a use for it.

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Given that many carrion-eating birds are killed by cars whilst dining on previous roadkill victims, this was probably not a bad move! Sadly, according to an echidna monitoring group, one in five sightings of an echidna is of one killed on the road. The spines of an echidna, which are actually modified hairs, are sharp and strong enough to pierce a car tyre - not that this really helps the echidna.

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Our Collection Manager came to collect the echidna, remarking as he did so that he wasn't able to tell us whether it was a male or a female, as unless the echidna has young in her pouch, they are fairly indistinguishable on the outside. Australian Echidnas are one of the few species belonging to the order of monotremes. Two species of echidna and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, or, as one young visitor to the centre described them, "animals dat lay eggs and boopfeed their babies!" They have other traits that distinguish them from other mammals, including their lower body temperature, slow metabolism and relative longevity.

That is, unless they try to cross a road.

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Here at the Discovery Centre, we receive all sorts of finds from all sorts of people. A 9 year old beachcomber finds a "shark tooth" which turns out to be millions of years old, for example. Today, an enquirer came in with this fine specimen he found with his metal detector, in suburban Melbourne. It certainly is heavy, with a metallic cast. It warms to the touch and has an intriguing scalloped surface. Of course, our visitor would like to know if his find is of extra- or terrestrial origin! 

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Looking at it through the eye of one of our Discovery Centre magnifying lenses yields little more information, so off to the Senior Collection Manager of Mineralogy it goes!

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

This attractive item came into the Discovery Centre today, identified by the enquirer as a Sioux Dance Fan, beaded and trimmed with Eagle feathers.

His purpose in bringing the fan in was to have the type of fur used in the trim identified. The only hint he could offer was that it was from North America, and that the animal products in the fan had been sourced from roadkill.

Well, at least it's a beautiful outcome from an unfortunate demise!

Whilst we don't specialise in North American mammal hides, our stalwart Mammalogist dutifully came down to inspect the item when he had a moment. It wasn't beaver - too coarse. It wasn't dog - too fine. His conclusion? Hare. Another mystery solved!