Endangered

 

1995: Endangered Species

Sadly the United Nations are not going to run out of threatened species to feature on their regular issues of endangered fauna. Here we have Black Rhino, Golden Parakeet, Red-shanked douc and Arabian Oryx which in the 1970s became extinct in the wild. They were saved because there were large numbers  in zoos and private reserves and from these they were reintroduced into the wild in the 1980s.

1984: Endangered Antelopes

A young bongo, vulnerable to predators like pythons, leopards and hyenas.  As adults their predator is human.

1993: The Caspian Seal (Design - V Khartvig)

The threat to the Caspian Seal is environmental. A unique species that it is thought became 'landlocked' in the Caspian Sea when the ice of the last ice age retreated about 11 thousand years ago.

2007: Rare Animals (Design - A Moskovets)

The Oriental Stork has the advantage of wings although habitat loss and, in the rice growing regions, the use of pesticides, means it is on the IUCN Red List

1986: Europa - Nature Conservation (Design Ken Lilly)

Well that was all a bit gloomy so here is a Barn Owl whose numbers have increased and is now moved on to the more optimistic Green List.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Endangered or Vulnerable Species - See It On A Postcard

Mellow Yellow

 

For this week's Sunday Stamps theme of 'Yellow' the best place to start must be with this perfectly coloured, and my only, Macedonia stamp, showing Makedonska Pošta's logo, the post horn. Macedonia's flag has the colour yellow in its rays of sun and the next country's flag also has yellow, in a stripe

 

shown on the bottom corner of this definitive stamp featuring a Fire Crowned Bishop.  If they had shown the Yellow Crowned Bishop it would have fitted perfectly with this theme but happily the background is yellow and shows its woven grass nest placed between upright grass stems, a favoured place for this seed eating bird.

Lets leave Africa and take a journey by boat

1980 'Ships'

to Singapore where this Fujian junk, a traditional Chinese ships, sails across a yellow background.  But what to wear on the journey, perhaps something in yellow?

 

The stamp description is "ceremonial costume" and at the time it was issued by North Vietnam in 1964 it was only being used at weddings and other formal occasions.  In the 1980s there was a revival in what is now considered the national costume, the  Áo dài, and it is worn on many occasions, plain white ones sometimes as school uniforms. As can be seen the silk tunic is worn over pantaloons/trousers, the stamp shows the older looser style but there is also a tighter fit style sometimes described as "covering everything but hiding nothing".

Next, a little unseasonably

is a 2006 Christmas stamp, one of 10 that were a result of a nationwide competition in which all New Zealand schoolchildren were invited to design a stamp illustrating what Christmas meant to them. This $1.50 stamp was by Sylvie Webby (age 11) who said "Pōhutukawa flowers look like red Christmas lights flashing on a native New Zealand tree".  Not a yellow flower then, so I'll finish with one that is

1988, 5th series, 'Narrow Road to a Far Province'

the safflower. The other stamp of this pair portrays Willow trees in Obanazawa, where the 17th Century poet Basho wrote part of  "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" when he stopped there for 10 days, the longest stopover of his trip to northern Japan.  The stamps are part of a multiple series issued by Japan to celebrate Basho's many journeys, or more precisely wanderings, where he met friends, enjoyed the scenic places, experienced the seasons and shared them with the world in his travel writings and poems. 

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought" Basho Matsuo

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of 'Yellow'