1.) Swamp Fox - 09/15/2015

I have a Merriams and a Rio which are very similar, though the one from California which I have always thought of as a Rio is much smaller. The bird it came from wasn't tiny, so go figure.

Anyway, they are both buff-tipped and I got to thinking how I'd really like to have a Merriams with the classic white coloration.


Who has Merriams that are more one color or another? Curious to see if I can guestimate how that shakes out on a map, for future hunt planning purposes.


In other news, my taxidermist called me this morning and told me one of the fans I gave him yesterday is a real rarity, an eastern with 20 tail feathers instead of the typical 18. I've never bothered to count fan feathers, so this was news to me. Anyhoo, this throws my plan for displaying three or four fans on one plaque into chaos, since Aaron has convinced me this SC 20-feather fan should be displayed separately.

This leaves me with another SC eastern (which has a good story to go with it) a large and very pretty Merriams and the much smaller but similar-looking Rio as mentioned above. I can't think of a good way to make those into one display or even two (I think the size disparity between the two western birds is freakin' me out). So I'm looking for some ideas...

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One thing I might like to try is a table display of one fan (maybe the small one) but I've never seen one. Anyone ever seen or done a fan that maybe sits up on a block of nice wood like a centerpiece or bookend?

Btw...the 20-feather bird is the one I got for this year's turkey contest, if anyone wants to see a picture of it.

2.) Swamp Fox - 09/15/2015

One thing I did think of is that since the two western birds are bow kills, I'd do one plaque with the big fan up top and the small fan displayed upside-down below. I'd like to be able to do one huge bow Gland Slam display eventually, but since an Osceola is apparently not in my future that I can see, I'm thinking I'll worry about that later, and maybe just make sure I can dismantle any western bird displays later, if I want to take the fans for another different project in the future. I assume that's do-able, but I'll have to make sure.

3.) Wild Bob - 09/16/2015

I like my turkey...smoked. :-)

4.) Swamp Fox - 09/16/2015

I know we don't have a lot of Westerners on here, but nobody nos where you can get into a bunch of white-featured Merriams?



:fire:

5.) Wild Bob - 09/16/2015

South Dakota would be where I'd head for strong pops of Merriams. Just a suggetion.