Taxidermy Tip Tuesday - Discussing binding mounted birds with string

Here is the eleventh video for ‘Taxidermy Tip Tuesday’, aimed at making taxidermy and our neighbouring industries (entomology, articulation, restoration etc.) more accessible and providing resources for beginners. This resource is available to all, please feel free to share it wherever you feel it’s needed.
In this video I am demonstrating how I would use the method of binding string on my finished taxidermy mount. I have been asked by several people to do a video on this, so really hope that this is going to be useful. I also wanted to address it because I know that this method is perceived to be controversial amongst some established taxidermists. However, as I discussed briefly in the video, this method has been used for decades and is seen repeatedly in historical illustrated guides to taxidermy.
It is good to not get in the habit of using this for every specimen that you mount and to only use it in instances where you feel that it would genuinely benefit the appearance of the specimen.
As somebody who doesn’t have a mentor I sometimes find it very difficult to see errors in my own work at the end of a long day. No matter how much I look at my reference material sometimes I just cannot make sense of something, or fail to see it at all. Not every taxidermist has the privilege of a second opinion, at least not for every bird, and I think sometimes taxidermists need to remember this when viewing other taxidermists work. Even though somebody tells me ‘’those feather groups are wrong’’, sometimes it is not within my ability to get them to where they need to be. As a rule, if another taxidermist is telling somebody something is wrong I think they should at least give them the solution to fix it.
It is at this point that I would consider whether or not I feel that binding would actually result in improvements. I do see a lot of taxidermists binding the whole bird unnecessarily, so try to use this method sparingly. If I use this method at all, I very typically will just do it for one wing, the tummy (as seen in this video) or perhaps to keep the tail feathers together etc.
Any questions or comments at all please leave them below and I will be happy to get back to you. Hope you find this useful!

[@mikelm.8401]

These videos are soo useful please keep making them!!!!

[@todbill6106]

Hi Elle are you going to be doing a demonstration

[@angelfirefilms3273]

Do you do competition?

[@ellekayetaxidermy]

No I have not competed yet. Maybe one day!

[@angelfirefilms3273]

Ok cool I understand everyone in the game has there own thing going on..