Hi all, We are revamping our exhibit on Birds which will have a section on back yard birds.  After having  just removed our old back yard bird display I found we have two problems . We have two birds glued, yes glued to a plastic back yard bird feeder.  To save the birds and the nerves of the curator (me) we are going to leave the birds as they are. But this leaves us with our second problem.  We removed the 30 yr old mixed bird seed from the feeder (be glad there is no scratch and sniff computer program because the smell was quite incredible) and we need to replace it with new "seed".  Seeds as individual entities are too small for replicas, I have already looked (though there was a cool art installation that used porcelain sunflower seeds, each painted by hand but I get off topic). If we use real seed, we will need to make it somehow un-attractive to bugs and other pests. Shy of adding nasty chemicals  which we don't want to do because of the birds, which are already full of arsenic.  We are out of bright ideas and could really use some good suggestions but remember there are two birds on the feeder that can't be removed.  HELP PLEASE!!

Jenny Yearous
Curator of Collections Management
State Historical Society of North Dakota



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