17 September 07

Avian Anatomy

My recent forays into bird sketching have required the study of some elementary avian anatomy. Where to find such a tome? I looked at online sources and pretty quickly realized I had a very respectable book on our shelves already, Proctor and Lynch’s Manual of Ornithology, a book I imagine the entering Avian Sciences class at Davis will be purchasing. (I got my copy back when I worked for an east-coast university press and knew the sales rep for a different east-coast university press.)

It’s been years since I did any anatomy at all, but it’s good to see some familiar names (humerus, ulna, radius) and some less familiar ones (retrices, hallux, crissum). I do already know about supercilia and malar patches.

My protracted encounter with turkey vultures today made me realize how much an anatomical background might help as I try to sort out feather groups, structure, shape…

Posted by at 09:20 PM in Bird Body Bits | Link |
  1. Am doing small sculpture of a bird (black) with one wing partly outstreached, and am looking for photoes, clips or drawings to give me some idea of how the wing works


    William Fisher    3. December 2008, 10:01    Link

Previous: Next: