Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2016 11:28:06 GMT
I have recently set about resetting all of the specimens in my collection that have, since we moved into our house 4 years ago "sprung", never has a problem with this in 40 years of collecting previously but it is a massive task and will take the rest of the year, so far, since march I have redone over 500 specimens, many, many more to go but the results so far have been spectacularly good and I'm really pleased. One thing I have had to start doing though is putting a little piece of paper at the bottom of the board when it's full with the date on it when they were set so that I can give them plenty of time to never move again, in most cases this has been a month to 6 weeks, but in all this work it reminded me of a habit, a bad habit that I have gotten into over the last decade, age related and mostly done in the spring and summer when my boards are always full of new, locally caught material, that is leaving specimens on the boards for months on end and quite simply "forgetting about them".
Time and time again in the winter I come across a board full of specimens, remark to myself how nice they look and then wonder how long they have been on there, only to look at the labels, realise that I caught and set them 8 months ago and that I'd better get around to taking them off, only to forget about it again and leave them another 6 months. My late friend, who passed last year, was even worse at this than me and I have found stuff in his bug room that had been on the boards for over 3 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Recently after visiting his wife I found some British Apatura Iris, a rare extreme ab P Brassicae blue form female and a male A Ilia that had been on there..............wait for it...................5 years, 5 bloody years. I took them home, cleaned them, repaired them and they have made quite good specimens. All this is such a turn around when, as a young collector I was so eager to get stuff off the boards I could hardly contain myself such was my eagerness to see it in the case or cabinet, how times change. I was recently informed by Danny that I had a rare female papilio mackinnoni from eastern Uganda that had been on the boards for around 9 months in my airing cupboard, (that won't lift).
Which brings me to the question, what is the longest you have ever, through feeble mindedness or otherwise, ever left a specimen on the boards for?
Time and time again in the winter I come across a board full of specimens, remark to myself how nice they look and then wonder how long they have been on there, only to look at the labels, realise that I caught and set them 8 months ago and that I'd better get around to taking them off, only to forget about it again and leave them another 6 months. My late friend, who passed last year, was even worse at this than me and I have found stuff in his bug room that had been on the boards for over 3 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Recently after visiting his wife I found some British Apatura Iris, a rare extreme ab P Brassicae blue form female and a male A Ilia that had been on there..............wait for it...................5 years, 5 bloody years. I took them home, cleaned them, repaired them and they have made quite good specimens. All this is such a turn around when, as a young collector I was so eager to get stuff off the boards I could hardly contain myself such was my eagerness to see it in the case or cabinet, how times change. I was recently informed by Danny that I had a rare female papilio mackinnoni from eastern Uganda that had been on the boards for around 9 months in my airing cupboard, (that won't lift).
Which brings me to the question, what is the longest you have ever, through feeble mindedness or otherwise, ever left a specimen on the boards for?