ZUGvögel – Collection in Motion

The walls of this show are transport boxes. When the Historic Bird Hall closed for restoration, staff cleaned, photographed and packed all 11,500 mounted birds, then stacked the boxes into the exhibition instead of sending them to storage. Most of the birds are over 100 years old, and they were in this building when bombs hit it in the Second World War.

You walk between those stacks through seven themes picked with more than 350 visitors: the collection's colonial roots, why some specimens wear make-up, DNA and isotope research on old feathers, and why the black kite is called a fire falcon in Australia. Berlin renters will recognise the plot: a Sanierung, 11,500 tenants boxed up, and a promise they get the old flat back.

It is as much about the museum rebuilding itself as about birds. The regular ticket covers it (€11, €5 reduced), and it runs until 30 June 2027.