Tanager Services
Museum Support
Exhibit Support
Over 20 years of Natural History museum experience
Latest News
Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. Here at Tanager Services it was quite relaxed, with a few end of the year projects that I worked on in conjunction with Inside Out Animals. First of all, I worked on the takedown of the giant sperm whale skeleton that was used in Freek Vonk’s live show, Rovers in de Rimboe. It was fun and interesting for many reasons, one was that this is a whale I worked on myself when it washed up back in 2018, and again worked on securing the teeth last year, and when I went to the show and saw how the audience responded to this massive animal it was just great to see. Part of what makes my work so rewarding!
I helped with a repair job on a broken skeleton at the Groote Museum at Artis. I had not visited since I helped hang all the specimens before the opening and it was neat to see all the further specimens and artwork that have been added! It is a really nice museum.
Earlier in the fall I helped mount the 3D printed T Rex at the Natuurmuseum Fryslan. The exhibit is great, and a real crowd pleaser! It is always a challenge to mount this animal but this time it was a bit easier, because of the high ceilings we could use a gantry style crane and though it took and extra hour to build the crane itself it was absolutely worth it for the ease of attaching the head, the tail, and all the other higher bits.
What has been taking most of my time is a project that is still in development at a castle here in the Netherlands. For now it has to stay under wraps but hopefully I can reveal more about it in a few months. Stay tuned!
About
Hi! I am Becky Desjardins. I started working in museums in 1998. Before that, I conducted fieldwork on birds (ringing, surveys, monitoring) around the United States. My years in the Bird Department at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences were a combination of fieldwork, collection work, and outreach. I learned all aspects of collection management: specimen preparation, digitalization, pest management, collection moving and storage, and visitor assistance. In addition I gave lectures, hosted class visits, and conducted outreach for many different user groups. After moving to the Netherlands in 2010 I came to Naturalis, where I was able to branch out from birds and learn about how to care for different types of specimens and collections: mammals, fossils (vertebrate and invertebrate), geologic, and plants. I also learned restoration and care for historic specimens. I started doing live preparation sessions for the public twice a week (in Dutch), I also helped design and then install some of the Naturalis exhibits as well as moved the collections around Leiden. I love the natural history museum work environment, and over the years have come across nearly every challenge a museum professional has to deal with. Tanager Services was started with the goal to support other museums and staff in various ways: education,specimen care and prep, exhibit care and conservation, advising on pesticide use in collections (both historic and current). Let’s work on something together!
Services
Natural History Collections
Cleaning Natural History specimens, hair, feathers, geologic, fossil
Repairing and Restoring Natural history specimens: vertebrate, geologic, models
Exhibitions
Installation of specimens into exhibits
Cleaning exhibits
Preparing, restoring, and caring for specimens to go into exhibits
Preparing
Vertebrate Specimens dry and wet
Mounting of botanical specimens onto paper
Insect specimens
Cleaning of pyrite contaminated fossil specimens
Natural History Collections
Cleaning Natural History specimens, hair, feathers, geologic, fossil
Repairing and Restoring Natural history specimens: vertebrate, geologic, models
Exhibitions
Installation of specimens into exhibits
Cleaning exhibits
Preparing, restoring, and caring for specimens to go into exhibits
Preparing
Vertebrate Specimens dry and wet
Mounting of botanical specimens onto paper
Insect specimens
Cleaning of pyrite contaminated fossil specimens
