08/24/2026
☀️ Good Monday Morning,
Mr. Tim Barrera traveled from Midland, Texas for his 40 Hour Avian Taxidermy Training Class.
Tim is married to his beautiful wife and has an 11 year old Son. Tim is an Engineer/Paramedic with the Midland Fire Department and it's interesting to note that his twin brother also works for the Midland FD.
Tim has been skinning and messing around with the waterfowl that he hunts at his friend's shop over in Nacogdoches for several years but decided it was time to get serious and contacted me for formal training.
We jumped right in with a production list that included both Ducks and Pheasant in both Flying & Standing Poses. All but one of the birds had a host of issues, which of course provided excellent training opportunities including an easier way to make necessary repairs to broken bones, wings and pellet holes.
Tim learned our system from A-to-Z with an emphasis on carcass sketch, head match, collapsed wing technique, the importance of stage 3 assembly, use of caulk, the drying sequence, lemon wedge eye setting technique, isolation wing setting and a multitude of other tips, tricks and techniques to put into his bird mounting toolbox.
We introduced Tim to the use of cast feet and his painting skills on both heads and feet were very good. He also did very well on skinning and we were able to up his game by showing him how to remove the pygostyle for a better result when setting the tail (which he did very well) on his Eval Bird, an open mouth Drake Widgeon.
Tim proved to be an excellent student, absorbing all the information while taking lots of notes and pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed having him in my shop and he is well on his way to becoming an excellent Bird Taxidermist.
Make it a Great Day! ~ Matt
