re: Do you have taxidermy in your abode? Is taxidermy trashy?

Over the years I've put multiple critters in the freezer promising myself that I was going to get said critter mounted for my office, shop, etc., but never did. Off the top of my head these include but are not limited to multiple 3+ pound crappie with one pushing 4 pounds, a 2 1/2 pound bluegill, a black duck, a MASSIVE bullsprig (a waterfowl biologist who captures and bands birds in the PPR for the USFWS was at the check station testing birds for avian influenza, and agreed with my experience of it being by far the biggest he'd ever seen), and although I never froze them, several deer that I said I was going to mount while riding back to the skinning shed and never did- other than for doing the skull mounts myself.

However due to multiple reasons related to the hunt (e.g., a family heirloom gun being used to kill it, an heirloom cutdown that will be my sons first call, the other hunter with me and his dog and our backstory, the green timber, which is the only way to hunt a mallard IMO, etc.) and along with the rarity of the bird I killed, I'm going to have this "blondie" mallard mounted*.

I refuse to, yet again, regret not enshrining another trophy animal, but most importantly the precious memories associated with it and with that day and that time. This time the memory is too rare and too special, and the gift of this rare bird being given to me and in that setting is too hallowed to not make those memories tangible as best as I can.

IME, more often than not, that is what is so special about a mounted animal when the owners points at and talks about it: the memories. And so trashy or not, this fabulously intriguing anomaly of nature is going on display to remind me of that morning and of how lucky I am for the bird and, mainly, the far more important things in life.







*A blonde mallard is actually better stated as a leucistic mallard: it lacks all or partial amounts of pigments. They (or the disorder) are different from an albino, and I've read before that the odds of killing one are 1 in 45,000.