011

Ref shot of a starling pre-skining and salting. It was killed by my boyfriend's one cat after it had found its way inside somehow. Instead of wasting it, I opted to preserve it, or at least its beautiful plumage. My first task was to remove both wings, and stretch them over 2 small, matching pieces of cardboard and pining them in place in an outstretched, in full flight look. It was then that I decided to remove the rest of the pelt. There wasn't much pelt between the shoulders or chest that was connected to the head, so I simply removed the whole head and stretched the flaps of skin out so as to make a ''mountable head'' later on for something like a staff. Then I slit the pelt down the belly and slowly pealed it from the body. It was remarkably easy, and a great first pelt to harvest, literally.

It has been several months of waiting for my starling to fully mummify, but last week I took him (?) out of the salt and the wings were perfect!!!! The rest turned out great, too, but I put everything but the wings back into the salt to use for later. The wings have been placed on a Pegasus sculpture. I don't have picts of him yet, but maybe soon. Anyways, here are the picts, hopefully in order, up to the point where I started cutting and couldn't use my camera without getting gunk on it... lol

*If you don't like looking at dead things, then don't look at these. And no, not all my stuff features dead stuff, so feel free to look at my other stuff