BOLTON Museum and Art Gallery bosses are feathering their nest with their exhibition about the Games.

Stuffed exotic parrots are part of a display called 'Our Commonwealth: Our Home'. The exhibition features a variety of objects collected from Britain's colonies in the museum's 150-year history.

Themes include trade, souvenirs and science.

Sean Baggaley, keeper of social history, said: "We would always look at the Commonwealth or our Colonies as they were known as a natural resource to be exploited.

"They were looked at as an amazing treasure house. People collected things because they were oddities. So there would be wildlife on display -- it provided people their only chance of seeing such things."

Some of the birds date back to 1887, and there are also ferns, spiders and other insects brought back as souvenirs on display.

Because New Zealand is Bolton's adopted Commonwealth country, the museum has borrowed some items for show including work indicative of New Zealand art as well as mineral.

In addition to the items on exhibition, the public can read the varied stories illustrating the lives of people who came from Commonwealth countries to settle in Bolton.

The exhibition runs until August 31.