[Nhcoll-l] [EXT] how to clean birds nests ?

Wed Sep 14 10:35:11 EDT 2022

This is excellent advice,  I completely concur with Marianna’s comments.
Gretchen
Gretchen Anderson
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Carnegie Museum of Natural History
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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Mariana Di Giacomo
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2022 10:22 AM
To: René Corado <rene at wfvz.org>; Benoit.Mellier at ville.angers.fr
Cc: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] [EXT] how to clean birds nests ?

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Dear Benoit,

This is quite tricky, due to the nests' fragility, as you already pointed out. My recommendation is to not make a blanket policy that all nests must be vacuumed/cleaned/dusted, and go on a case-by-case basis. Some nests may be in good enough condition that you do not need to do anything, and others may have varying degrees of need. Adding a net will only make sure that all the fragments you pull with the vacuum remain with the nest and are not sucked into the vacuum, but will not protect from the damage happening in the first place.

My recommendation would be to use a triage approach: assess all nests, separate them into three main categories (ready to move, needs some cleaning, too far gone, or something of the sort) and then see how many you have in each category. The ones that are already ready to go, just go, and the ones that need some cleaning should be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Finally, those that are too dirty to be useful should be addressed with a different approach, which is whether it is important to keep them or not, due to their deteriorated condition. This is a hard question to ask but if they do not serve any research, exhibit, or educational purpose due to deterioration, it is a curatorial/collections management question that needs to be asked prior to any resources put into their cleaning, especially because this can take a long time and effort from staff.

I'm happy to discuss with you techniques and approaches for cleaning, if you're interested, so let me know and we can go from there.
Best,
Mariana

Mariana Di Giacomo, PhD
Natural History Conservator, Yale Peabody Museum
Associate Editor, Collection Forum, SPNHC
Secretary/Communications APOYOnline

El mié, 14 sept 2022 a las 10:06, René Corado (<rene at wfvz.org<mailto:rene at wfvz.org>>) escribió:
Hi Benoit,

We have a collection of ~20,000 nests. We never dust or vacuum any nests, I won’t recommend it. I placed every individual nest in plastic boxes or sealed them in plastic bags before I put them into cabinets. When I arrived at the museum 37 years ago, several thousand nests were wrapped individually in newspaper and storage in cardboard boxes, the newspaper protected them from the dust until I put them in plastic and into the cabinets.

Best regards,
René Corado

On Sep 14, 2022, at 6:34 AM, Valerie Tomlinson <VTomlinson at nature.ca<mailto:VTomlinson at nature.ca>> wrote:

Hi Benoit,
My last work place had several projects on dust, although it wasn’t a Natural History museum. In one project they dusted everything in the store. It was one of the smaller stores, but it still took over a year to complete. If you dust everything in your collection, plan on a multi-year project, and since it would take so long, perhaps add on some value-added work like upgrading storage mounts or catalogue records.
Another dust incident happened immediately after that project, so from that we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t necessary to dust everything in the stores. A lot of the time, most of the damage is already done by the dust and removing it can cause more damage. It is only worth dusting if the dust is actively/rapidly causing degradation (enhancing mould growth or corrosion, causing significant surface scratching, etc.) and/or the item is going on display, or the item is otherwise in use and the dust will interfere with that use. If the item is just sitting in storage with no plans for use in the near future, and the dust is not causing significant continued degradation, then dusting may wait for a request for loan, display, or research.
In such circumstances it is better to focus on preventive measures, such as improved storage to prevent dust accumulation, such as: improved HVAC filtration; storage in closed cupboards; storage in boxes; or the use of dust covers.
A dust monitoring project in the new store may also be something to consider. Dust always happens, so it’s good to know how much, what kind, where it builds up, that kind of thing. Then you’ll have some idea of how frequently you’ll have to think about dusting.

As for your bird nests, because of their fragility, I would take the preventive approach. If it is not scheduled for use in the foreseeable future, then focus on improving the storage and packing. Only dust selected items where the dust is truly interfering with use, and/or is causing continuing damage.

That’s my 2 cents.
Valerie Tomlinson

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of MELLIER Benoît
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2022 8:40 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [EXT][Nhcoll-l] how to clean birds nests ?

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Dear all,
Here at Angers Nat. Hist. Museum (Western France), we are working on our collections before their complete relocation in a new storage building. Among all the tasks, one important is cleaning the specimens. Most of all are dusty and sometimes dust is easy to remove sometimes it is not, it depends on the kind of the specimens. My question concerns birds nests : did some of you experiment birds nests dust off ? Some restorers tell us to wrap the nest with a net and use a vacuum. I will appreciate your answers and your experience sharing about this.
Thanks,

Benoît MELLIER
Zoologie, Sciences de la Terre et Préhistoire
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