Imping The Eagle

[den]

I wrote about this here so here are the photos.


Wedge-tailed Eagle


Helen holds the eagle.


Gillian spreads the bird's wing to show the damage to the outer soaring feathers.


Drilling out the core of the feathers prior to inserting the donor feathers. You thought I was joking about using the Ryobi drill?


Gil measures the donor feathers prior to cutting them from the wing of a dead eagle. The length of the repaired feathers have to equal the length of the original feathers.


Inserting a skewer into the donor feather. We used Araldite epoxy to hold the sticks in place. (Photo taken while we worked on the second eagle)


Donor feathers ready to insert into the wings. The labels were so we knew which feather was which.


Inserting the new L9 feather into the broken feather. L10 and L3 are already in place.


The left wing finished - Feathers L10 to L4 have been replaced. The scraps of paper are to stop the feathers from sticking to each other. (That's me holding the wing)


The wing of the second eagle showing the damaged feathers after Gil and Helen trimmed off the worst bits.


And the wing after our repairs.


I missed getting a photo of Gil and Helen ironing the tail feathers of the second eagle.

Comments

[ngarewyrd.livejournal.com]

Ironing the tailfeathers? somehow this sorta raises an odd thought in my mind..

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

they used a steam iron to straighten the feathers.