Museo Ornitologico della Sardegna

WHERE IS IT The Ornithological Museum of Sardinia is located in Siddi, a small rural village situated among the rolling hills in the heart of Marmilla, surrounded and protected by a basalt plateau (Pranu de Siddi) formed about 2.5 million years ago. Overlooking the main square of the country, the museum is housed in part of the building that hosted the Managu hospital, rare and important example of functioning hospital in rural Sardinia in the second half of 800.

DESCRIPTION To Siddle is the only museum in Sardinia that has focused its attention exclusively on ornithological collections, providing its visitors with an exhibition of about 300 copies (the most complete museum collection of birds visit the island currently represented in 19 orders and 51 families), all belonging to the sedentary and migratory wildlife that populates the different habitats of the island.

On the ground floor there is the exhibition area and that informative. Immediately after the ticket office, which also host functions, a first section introduces the history of the building that houses the collection and then, through a visual and tactile path, the evolutionary history of birds: from the "dinosaur with" Archeopteryx wings to beaks of various present day species. Followed by a series of windows, large and small, where visitors have the opportunity to contemplate, in a strictly scientific path, many specimens of birds. Completing this section cards and fact sheets on each exposed specimen, and a series of educational panels, photos and video images on the most relevant aspects of the biology of birds and the main types of habitats frequented by them.

On the first floor, passing through a large and symbolic egg, it develops another part of the exhibition area, more related to the environment and to the territories of birds and more, and then the recreational-educational section, the media and the conference room. Here they find space an "eco-active" environment for a full-immersion visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory within the most significant habitats of the island and in the Mediterranean area frequented by birds: coastal lagoons and brackish ponds, and ponds Canneti d ' fresh water, pastures and agricultural environments, Macchia and woods, ridges and ravines, urban environment. The exhibition continues with the observation of a showcase where various bird nests are exposed. Help visiting giant screens, PCs, projectors and "links" only. Among these, cameras filming 24 hours a 24, without disturbing, and for scientific, informative and study, some of swallows nests built in a traditional house in the historic center of Siddi.

The museum environments are concluded, on the ground floor, with a shop stocked with books, DVDs, gadgets and various objects on birds, nature and other topics.

ACTIVITY 'AND SERVICES In addition to opening day and functioning as an information point, the museum there are guided tours, educational workshops, exhibitions, cultural events, meetings, presentations, seminars and conferences on ornithology world, nature and the environment, and not only.

HISTORY But just because an ornithological museum in Siddi? The idea to create it came in 2002., when the existing 'Museo Civico Nature and Mineralogical' was transformed into 'Ornithological Museum of Sardinia'. The Municipal Museum, built in 1992 with the acquisition of a private collection that consisted of a large number of minerals from all over the world and many species of animals (reptiles, mammals and especially birds), belonging to the Sardinian and Italian fauna and, in small part to that of other European countries and the world. The single-theme choice and Regional of the new museum is rooted in concern is the high number of birds found in the old collection (increased gradually in recent years), is the "Sardinian" origin of the vast majority of these. Together there were the passion and the will to make a genuine choice in the island's museum landscape, and the desire to contribute to a more careful understanding of the life of the birds and the places where they live. Today the collection has over 300 pieces. The idea is to add to it with all the species present in Sardinia (about 360).

Since 2008 the museum of the Centre CEAS Siddi, the Centre for Environment Education and Sustainability.

The museum, owned by the City of Siddi, has been run since 2002 by RTI Sa Fogaia (Cooperativa Villa Silli Cooperative and the Historical Memory).