The five new bird taxidermy mounts and four research skins - the latter not intended for public display - have been completed for the museum's natural science collection.
Natural science curator Emma Burns yesterday welcomed the new material, which would strengthen the museum's bird collection.
About half a dozen taxidermised birds had also been added in 2013.
The museum had recently received five taxidermised and mounted birds, comprising a red-billed gull, a rosella, two flesh-footed shearwaters and a titi, or sooty shearwater.
''Birds that the public perceive as common, like the red-billed gull, can be rare in museum collections,'' Ms Burns said.
Despite the eastern rosella reportedly being introduced to Dunedin in 1910, this was the first Dunedin-collected example in the collection.
A pair of flesh-footed shearwaters had been specifically requested for preservation from a research programme using birds salvaged from fishing bycatch. Another open-ocean species just being added to the museum's collection was a juvenile Buller's mollymawk which had lost its way, was blown inland and had later been found at Roxburgh, Central Otago.
Dead birds were often brought to the museum by members of the public and wildlife management agencies.
Often, these were birds which had died after flying into windows or had been washed up on beaches after storms, she said.
