Cleaned Skulls

After a long maceration process and bleaching in the sun, I finally have my Cormorant skull ready for display. I believe it is the skull of a Double Crested Cormorant because they're so common and this one was found near Hamilton Harbour. The kids pointed it out to me among the rocks and thought it was from a Canada Goose, but as soon as I saw the beak I knew it wasn't a goose or duck. At first, I thought it was a large sea gull of some sort. There was still some flesh and feathers on it as well as the distinctive throat pouch leading me to the Cormorant conclusion.


Another one of my maceration projects was this deer skull. It was given to me by a hunter friend of ours after it had been buried for several months. That process rotted the outer skin and muscles off, but the brain was still a dried lump inside! After months of maceration outside in a bucket of water, I finally got it fairly clean.
When all the tissues where gone, I soaked it in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and a little water. I could only find bottles of 3% solution but that seems to have worked well. I bought 7 bottles and poured in enough to completely cover the skull.
I added a small amount of water in case of evaporation. I left it alone for a week and here is the final result.