12/14/2025
Almost 10 years difference! These are both Great Horned Owls that I taxidermied close to a decade apart. The one of the left is from 2025 and the one on the left is from 2016. (iPhone camera quality had a glow-up too!)
When I’m working on a specimen I’ve done before, I often start by looking at reference photos of living specimens and THEN look at photos of my previous work. I ask myself what I wish I’d done differently, what looks wrong, and try to remember the challenges I had before. I usually print off pictures of my previous work and draw on top of them with my notes.
This is a great way to keep evolving in your work. No one loves revisiting past ‘failures’ but, I believe it’s only a failure if you didn’t learn anything.
As for my 2016 Great Horned Owl, I can see that I’ve evolved but I’m also not unhappy with the work. It looks like a Great Horned Owl and has some good anatomy. I could have focused more on grooming, facial shapes, feather patterns on the face and more. But if you look at most GH Owl mounts in museums, they don’t look this good.
I’m sure in 10 years I will look back on my 2025 GH Owl and have some notes for myself. The important thing is to look back in order to move forward.
** Great Horned Owls are protected in North America by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. In the US, they may only be salvaged and/or possessed by institutions with a federal permit. I have a federal permit in order to work on them for the purposes of taxidermy. Both these specimens were found de@d and belong to institutions with permits. **
