FLEUR FULCHER: Fleur's Internship Diary Weeks Four and Five

Over, once again to the divine Ms F. She is spending the summer as an intern at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. This is her story.......

It has been a hectic two weeks both at work and at home, so I can only apologise for the missing week from my internship diary.

Last week started with me in Launceston; I had wanted to be allowed to help the curators to see how they work. Tony Eccles, the curator of Ethnography let me help him take down an exhibition about the great plant collectors of the Veitch nurseries. They had by the outbreak of World War one introduced 1281 plants to the west, including over 200 orchids and the Pocket Handkerchief tree we have one of in our garden.

The rest of the week was taken up with more shells including the prettiest ones yet and more herbarium. On the Friday I was again helping Tony, we took some rather ace objects to be photographed. My favourite was a Tongan club.

This week we have been doing a variety of things, yet more shells, even more herbarium action and condition checking the Cuvier's Beaked whale skeleton which is being remounted.

On being told that there was a Moa skeleton in the stores, I found it whilst looking for a whale rib and took a few pictures. On Friday I also saw a specimen of Passenger Pigeon, a bird whose story I'm sure you're all familiar with. It looked ordinary; not being an ornithologist I wouldn't have thought it unusual if it appeared in my garden. But nonetheless seeing it in such close proximity was quite emotional, it was on a table, between a pair of hummingbirds and the shell of a small turtle.

Friday afternoon found Catherine crawling around finding bits of bamboo under a tiger (one of 39 shot in 10 days by George V, the git), and found me checking pest traps as we had found a couple of live booklice, in one of them were two odd looking insects I couldn't identify, on asking some of my superiors they couldn't identify it either although the Assistant Natural History curator thought it was a type of winged Psocid (booklouse) however we were unsure if he was right and may send photographs of it to an expert. It was a rather long legged, bristly winged beastie of about 2 or 3 mm in length. Maybe I shall include a pic of it next week if I can.

So all in all I am still loving my work placement and hope that I can get a job in a museum like the one I'm working at now.

Fleur's bosses at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum have been kind enough to allow her to write this blog, even though it is not usually their policy to allow such things. We would like to thank them for this, and to point out that all pictures of museum specimens are copyright to the RAMM

FLEUR FULCHER: Fleur's Internship Diary Week Three

Over, once again to the divine Ms F. She is spending the summer as an intern at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. This is her story.......

This week started the same as the others, with more shell cleaning, this week it was some rather amazing looking Jamaican snail shells, some as small as 2mm across, thankfully all remained intact after my ministrations. We also got to watch as a whale skeleton was moved, so that parts of it could be cleaned and then put back. Apparently it is a Cuvier's Beaked Whale and shall be displayed when the museum re-opens.

The most fun part of the week, however, was Friday when we were checking the herbarium for pests; whilst vacuuming and checking we found many things, chunks of rock with 100 year old lichen on, huge dried mushrooms in old soap boxes, and lots of plant samples in old envelopes with Victorian stamps on. My fellow intern found a book-louse, a tiny little thing which enjoys munching on books and suchlike objects.

After finding this, the box it was in was quickly wrapped with polythene and parcel tape to be frozen, whilst this may seem mean to the louse, it is apparently a humane (louse-ane?) way of killing them. Museum pests are actually quite interesting and some are moderately cute even if they are in the wrong place, drugstore beetle is my current favourite.

Less charming are spiders, who, althought they don't eat the objects do leave poo all over them that is quite hard to clean off!!

This internship has made me love what I do even more than before, and I've learnt a huge amount.

Many museums require volunteers even if you haven't a related qualification, so why not get involved? You get to see many things that aren't visible to the public, and get a new view on how museums work.

Fleur's bosses at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum have been kind enough to allow her to write this blog, even though it is not usually their policy to allow such things. We would like to thank them for this, and to point out that all pictures of museum specimens are copyright to the RAMM

FLEUR FULCHER: Fleur's internship diary week 2

Over, once again to the divine Ms F. She is spending the summer as an intern at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. This is her story.......

We have been continuing with the cleaning of shells and their boxes, which despite predictions to the contrary I still love. In fact I am starting to wonder why I never found snails interesting previously the most delicate object yet was some 100 year old freeze dried snail eggs.

This week we also learnt more about how the documentation works in a museum, something which my fellow intern grasped far more quickly than I. I did, however, get to help with the wrapping of a donated Rhino horn for freezing. Objects such as that horn have to be frozen when aquired to kill any pests that may be living within.

When working on the shells we were on the lookout for Byne's disease, which oddly is not a disease at all but rather efflorecense caused by a reaction with acid vapours in the air. the beautiful wooden cabinets that such collections are often kept in are one cause of these vapours.

Working at a rate of about 200-300 shells a day there are still many days of shells left, but there are other projects to be working on, these might include historic man-traps, helping check the stores for signs of pests and helping to freeze objects that need it.

We've met more of the other museum staff, and I'm starting to understand more about how a museum works. Catherine went to South Molton museum to help with putting up an exhibition, and next time I shall be helping in a different museum.

A similarity I have noticed between members of the CFZ and the people I work with is a noted fondness for cakes of various types.

Fleur's bosses at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum have been kind enough to allow her to write this blog, even though it is not usually their policy to allow such things. We would like to thank them for this, and to point out that all pictures of museum specimens are copyright to the RAMM

FLEUR'S INTERNSHIP DIARY - Week One

When I was younger I visited the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter a lot, sometimes once or twice a month as it was free.


The exhibits that appealed to me most were the animals and the shells, the animals were in a big room, a tiger shot by a king, a hippo and a giraffe with, apparently the tail of a cow.


The shells were upstairs in beautiful wooden cabinets that I still covet to this day.


I have just finished my diploma in Conservation (Museum Coservation: The job of being a conservator, who restores and maintains museum exhibits) and am starting the MA in September so I needed a placement. Having got a summer internship with the conservation team at RAMM along with my friend Catherine we are becoming very well acquainted with the shells, there are about 30,000 and all need to be checked and cleaned to go in their snazzy new place once the museum reopens.


We are based in a purpose built building in Exeter and I have been gazing upon deceased animals to my heart's content. Hummingbirds, Hippos and Helix pomatia are all there.


This week has been a good learning curve for me, I've learnt to mix up the conservator's adhesive of choice (paraloid), check a stuffed bird which is going on loan (I did mix up left and right until it was pointed out, oops), look round the textiles department (very very lovely!) as well as cleaning over 400 shells.


Being in the Museum Stores also lets one see things that wouldn't normally be on display, there's a real human skeleton, cabinets of birds eggs, butterflies and moths, and the spirit store where all the animals in jars and bottles are kept, the room smells of formaldehyde and looks somewhat like I imagine Professor Snape's office at Hogwarts to look like.
I also met the Curator of Natural History today who was very interesting and explained to us about how the eating habits of certain thrushes can change the populations of snails with different banding patterns and also told me more about Partula snails and the sadly extinct Quagga! Feel free to ask me any questions about conservation, I'll do my best to answer! (and if I don't know I'll ask people who do)

Fleur's bosses at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum have been kind enough to allow her to write this blog, even though it is not usually their policy to allow such things. We would like to thank them for this, and to point out that all pictures of museum specimens are copyright to the RAMM