for Laura

Volunteering Week Ten; The Final Week

What happened in week 10? It was our last week, so we were happy and sad and up for a laugh and wanting to get it done and intending to get loads done and to conclude at a satisfactory point. And then we found a walrus skull.

We also found a dugong skull - WEIRD. 

We also explored another green box, just to finish up the section, and we found more skulls, mostly of terriers. We found a seal skull, I think it was a cape sea lion, big sharp pointy teeth! The box also contained the ear bones from several whales; two of which were marked as humpback whales! 

Tucked away in a corner of a box was the skull of a fox terrier, with its teeth attached to a piece of card. A little bit weird.

As it was our last week, Lynsey came up to see us, and we were presented with certificates for the work that we have done! So we hosted a prompt and cheesy award ceremony photoshoot ;-)

It was a really, really good ten weeks and I honestly learnt something new every time I was there! It was also great to get some experience in this sector, as museum work is one career path I am interested in taking when I graduate. I'm also a bit morbid and am fascinated by bones, especially skulls, so it was good to indulge that side of me too! A big thankyou to Lynsey at Thinktank, and all the MCC staff for helping us get the work done, despite technology issues! Hopefully I will be back next year to finish up the Natural Science section.

Volunteering Week 9! Bones!

In week nine, we continued to work on the large items on the shelves. There were lots of bones that needed identifying as much as they could be, and then adding to the MINISIS software.

We had half a skeleton of a large cat; a whole taxidermy peacock and a monkey of some sort complete with gunk on the joints!

Handling taxidermy peacocks is a lot harder than you may think!

Volunteering Week Eight! A belated post

I’m not very good at blogging a series of posts on the same subject. I’ve been meaning to catch up with these posts for a while, but have just never had the desire to do it. No more! I *will* get the remaining posts written, and then you’ll all hopefully be sick of pictures of skulls!

So, in week 8, from what I can remember, we carried on working through the box of monkeys, which actually contained six primates and a koala.

We also carried on with some of the large taxidermy animals, which included a hyena, a deer, a fox and a cat! The hyena was quite big – I didn’t think they were that big – but the face looked it was smiling at us. Very unnerving.

I also had a mooch around the far side of the warehouse, and found some more weird and wonderful taxidermy. A pet dog? A sloth on a branch? A seal? Welcome to museum storage!

There were also some objects that were not part of the natural science collection, so I took photos of these as well.

I've become a mommy!

...To two white dumbo girl rats :-) They are sisters, and are now 17 weeks old. Matilda has a darker nose and splodges down her back, Missy is the pale nose.