The Booth Museum

A couple of weeks ago I got thoroughly lost and drenched in Brighton while looking for the Booth Museum. It was worth the effort to find (good god Brighton has a lot of hills!). The Booth Museum is pretty small, just a little larger than the Grant Museum's old location but it's very different from any other museum I've been to.

The animals, predominantly birds, are set out to look like they're in their natural habitats. I'm used to weird little guys like this bat, all cooped up in jars with their faces bent into funny expressions and losing their colour.

(as always click through to flickr for a better view and more)

Somehow it was more unnerving to see them peering out frozen in time. The cases are also stacked from floor to ceiling. It took me a lot longer to get used to staring at them intently to sketch than it does in somewhere clinical like the Hunterian.

I stuck to the bones for a bit until I felt comfortable haha! This guy was a little spider monkey. It was interesting though, especially from my birdwatcher's point of view as it means I'm now better at gauging the size of certain birds.

It also had a couple of extinct birds like these Great Auks, which were like our very own penguins.

I'd like to go back with more of a plan as I went not knowing quite what to expect and I really enjoyed it. If you're in Brighton and looking for a quiet spot for drawing specimens it's pretty perfect really.

xxx