Cassowary (Courtesy photo)

There are approximately 450 species of birds that have been seen in Massachusetts and around 900 in North America. The world total is somewhere around 10,000 species.

You can see scientific specimens of nearly 400,000 birds not far down the road at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

When our friend Oona asked us if we would like to join her on a private tour of the ornithology collection at the museum, we jumped at the opportunity. When does one get the chance to see just about any bird found in the world up close and personal?

The first room we were shown was the office/lab where specimens are prepared. On a shelf were several complete bird skeletons and among them was a cassowary. We were shown how specimens were prepared for storage and the field books where ornithologists record their collection data. The field records date from the late 1800s to the present day.

Harpy eagle (Courtesy photo)

We were asked if we had a particular bird we would like to see. I immediately thought of the harpy eagle. This rare bird eluded us on our recent trip to Costa Rica where it can occasionally be seen along the southern border. We were led into one of many rooms crammed full of steel specimen cabinets, lined from floor to ceiling. Our host checked on the Latin name (Harpia harpyja) and opened the appropriate cabinet. Pulling out a drawer, we saw not one but two of these magnificent birds.

Oona's request was cassowary, a wedge-tailed eagle that she had seen in the wild in Tasmania, and the New Zealand rock wren.

We saw several drawers full of hummingbirds still retaining their iridescent plumage after having been preserved, some of them, back in the late 1800s.

Opening another cabinet, we saw a male and female golden pheasant that had been owned by George Washington. The pheasants had just been returned from Mount Vernon after being on loan. The golden pheasants were stuffed birds rather than preserved specimens. Preserved specimens make up most of the collection.

The collection comprises about 400,000 specimens of over 8,300 species and is the largest university-based collection in the world and the fifth largest overall. We are truly lucky to have such a comprehensive research collection so close at hand.

This trip was made more interesting for me as I had just finished reading "To See Every Bird on Earth." The book was written by Dan Keppel about his father's quest to see every bird on earth. Up until the time the book was completed, his father had seen 7,950 species. Seeing hundreds of birds laid out in drawers from many different countries showed what an incredible achievement the quest was.

Although I note in my field guides each species of bird I see both in this country and on our trips abroad, I have never bothered to count the total number of species. I think I will leave that for a cold winter's night sitting in front of the fire, where I will be able to reminisce about all the wonderful birds I have had the pleasure of seeing.

David Durrant lives with his wife, Pamela, on East Bare Hill Road at Micheldever Farm, where they watch birds—their own peacocks, chickens, and wild birds.