In 1983 a schoolgirl in south Auckland found a strange
white bird huddled under a tree in the grounds of her school. The bird was
clearly unwell. The girl took it home and looked after it but it died in the
night.
This bird would start Auckland Museum curator Brian Gill
on a consuming quest to discover the bird’s origin, and how it had ended up
where it was found. The mystery deepened when a tiny ant’s head, found in the
bird’s gizzard, showed the bird could have come only from southeast Australia.
How on earth had it got to New Zealand?
This is one of the many remarkable stories in Gill’s
book The Owl that Fell from the Sky (Awa Press, $35).
Natural history collections of museums contain thousands
of strange specimens, from stuffed mammals to mysterious frogs, eggs of extinct
birds, snakes – yes, we do have them in New Zealand! – and unusual bones.
Behind many lie tales of adventure, exploration, human obsession, scientific
quests and strange coincidences.
Gill, curator of birds and land vertebrates at Auckland
Museum, reveals the background of fifteen unusual objects in New Zealand
museums, and in the process leads us behind the scenes into the curator’s
world, where a phone call from a member of the public can lead to an exciting
discovery, carefully preserved specimens can help biosecurity officers detect
that an alien species has invaded the country, and the answer to a baffling
mystery can come from a tiny clue – such as the head of an ant.
A gem of a book—Brian Gill’s engaging prose hooks you
immediately and captures the absolute delight of what it is to work in a museum. –
Leo Joseph, Director,
Australian National Wildlife Collection.
The Owl
that Fell from the Sky: Stories of a Museum Curator by Brian Gill
Release
date: June 21, 2012
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