Exhibitions - American Museum & Gardens

Local sponsor

Unforgettable Behaviour

28 September – 31 December 2024

The American Museum & Gardens is the first museum in the UK to host Unforgettable Behaviour, which celebrates exciting animal behaviour photography from the Natural History Museum’s world-renowned Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Unforgettable Behaviour showcases 39 powerful photographs from previous Wildlife Photographer of the Year collections, displaying some of the most incredible animal behaviour moments ever captured on camera.

The exhibition features soundscapes, expert insights and spectacular species, showing the breathtaking diversity of the natural world.

Included for families

Unforgettable Behaviour has a range of creative family activities and invitations to play:

Dress-up and jump inside a hide in the middle of the exhibition to look at the wildlife through binoculars
Dig for animal scat and footprints in our fun dig pits, and identify what you discover
Create your own animal mask and take some selfies
Check how tall you are with our animal height chart
Read some animal books
Play with the funky puzzles

Young Person’s Wildlife Photography competition

You are invited to take part in our Young Person’s Wildlife Photography competition, which is open to all. Finalists will be put on display in the Exhibition Gallery for the public to vote for the winner. Enter the competition today.

About the photography in Unforgettable Behaviour

The exhibition includes the works of several American photographers, with a total of 17 countries represented, and 35 award-winning photographers. US photographer Karine Aigner’s winning photograph for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022 – the remarkable shot of a buzzing ball of cactus bees spinning over the hot sand in Texas – will be on display.

The photos show an extraordinary range of surprising, and often deeply moving, acts by animals. They have been chosen to allow visitors to connect with animals they might never otherwise see and to inspire everyone to care about the world around us.

This global show was previously hosted by The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, USA.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year, established in 1965, is a globally renowned photography competition that highlights exceptional talent worldwide. With entries from over 90 countries, images are chosen for their creativity, originality and technical excellence by international experts.

Image credits below:
Top row, left to right – 1. © Marsel van Oosten, 2. © Udayan Rao Pawar, 3. © Diana Rebman
Bottom row – 1. © Paul Souders, 2. © Eric Pierre