Ornithology (Birds) Collection
The Museum's Ornithology Collection contains eggs, nests, skeletons, taxidermy, alcohol preserved birds and also tissue used for genetic analysis. The bird specimens are sourced from all over Western Australia as well as Christmas Island and Indonesia. This collection also contains a reference collection of specimens from around Australia and the world.
VIDEO: Seabirds of Western Australia by Ron Johnstone
- Number of items
- 37000
- Donate to the collection
Please view the Terrestrial Zoology department guidelines for donation.
- Guidelines for identification
Please view the Terrestrial Zoology department guidelines for identification.
- Collection contact
Ron Johnstone
Curator – Ornithology
Phone: (08) 9212 3739
ron.johnstone@museum.wa.gov.auClaire Stevenson
Technical Officer – Ornithology & Mammology
Phone: (08) 9212 3791
claire.stevenson@museum.wa.gov.au
Mawson’s Penguin
This specimen is a mounted Emperor Penguin collected by A.L. McClean Chief Medical Officer on Mawson's Polar Expedition between 1911 and 1913 of the Antarctic.
- Mawson’s Penguin
- Photo by Claire Stevenson
- Image copyright of WA Museum
Eastern Indonesian collection
The Western Australian Museum has extensive collections from eastern Indonesia collected by WAM staff in the 1980s and 1990s. The collection contains some rare and recently named subspecies including a new Boobook Owl from Roti Island and a new Bush-warbler from Alor Island.
- Eastern Indonesian collection
- Photo by Claire Stevenson
- Image copyright of WA Museum
Christmas Island collection
Christmas and Cocos-Keeling islands are Australian external territories in the north-east Indian Ocean. These remote islands contain a number of endemic species and are important breeding places for many seabirds. The Western Australian Museum has substantial collections from Christmas Island and in 2004 published a review of the birds of these islands in volume two of the Handbook of the Birds of Western Australia.
Specimens from these islands also compliment our holdings of material from Indonesia. Many of the vagrants that occur on Christmas Island originate from Indonesia.
- Christmas Island collection
- Photo by Ron Johnstone
- Image copyright of WA Museum
New Pitta recorded for WA
This is the first record of a Hooded Pitta Pitta sordida in Australia. It was found dead on Barrow Island in January 2010 and sent to the Museum for identification. It belongs to the subspecies cucullata that breeds in the Himalayan foothills, north-east India ,Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand and migrates south to Malaysia, Sumatra and Java during the northern winter.
- New Pitta recorded for WA
- Photo by Claire Stevenson
- Image copyright of WA Museum
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