Flying off the page

Flying off the page Unreachable, untameable and largely unknowable; birds may be conspicuous in our environment, yet they remain strangely elusive. It is this "magical sheen", says University of Sussex lecturer in English Dr Will Abberley , that's caused them to be such an inspiration to writers. To celebrate this human-avian connection, Will has curated an exhibition at Brighton's Booth Museum of Natural History this summer through pairing bird-inspired British literature with taxidermy specimens. ' Stories on the Wing: British Birds in Literature ', which runs from May 26 until September 21, highlights how ornithologists have turned their observations of birds into stories and how birds have sparked our imaginations through myths, folk tales and creative writing. Texts, such as Barry Hines' A Kestrel for a Knave and Helen Macdonald's response to grief, H is for Hawk, are on display with their corresponding stuffed counterparts from 19^th century taxidermist Edward Booth's collection. The exhibition - which also features a golden eagle, an arctic tern, a kingfisher and various common garden birds - includes the museum founder Booth's own Rough Notes, in which he made detailed observations of birds in the wild. "When Booth was creating the museum it was his ambition to capture every species of bird in the British Isles or that had migrated to the British Isles," says Will.