University of Oxford Natural History Museum

For the enthusiast of the natural world, there are many reasons to enjoy living near to the city of Oxford – Wytham Woods to the west, Harcourt Arboretum to the south and the Botanic Gardens in the city centre are splendid places to spend a sunny and warm day.

But as the days start to get shorter and the weather starts to get colder a turn, the best place to head is the Oxford University Museum of Natural History:

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Built in 1859, the fantastic neo-gothic building houses the Oxford University’s collection of zoology, entomology and geology and  is the casts of the Tyrannosaurus and Iguanodon that first grasp your attention as you walk through the entrance:

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The exhibits of local geology & palaeontology are fascinating and even the ones local wildlife are interesting, even if it is somewhat sad to see animals that have featured in this blog as stuffed exhibits in a museum (even one as good as this):

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Although it is the entomological exhibits that are probably the most engrossing - especially the displays of living insects, perhaps none more than the honey bees, which can be seen bringing pollen from outside the museum to their specially constructed glass walled hive and then doing their waggle dance to explain the location of nearby flowers.

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It is best  to make the most of the Museum this year, as it closes throughout 2013 for the splendid (but leaking) gothic roof to be repaired (although access to the Pitt Rivers museum remains open):

http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/visiting/closure.htm