Medley of Minibeasts

 

2009: Endangered Species (Illustrator - Roger Kent)

Creepy crawlers and winged wonders with a Emperor Dragonfly and Southern Wood Ant. Below them - Alpine longhorn beetle (found in beech forests) and an Apollo Butterfly

2003: Insects

A mayfly (Ephemera danica), and an aquatic beetle, Dytiscus latissimus, who before they dive collect air bubbles in their wing cases. The wing cases of beetles are called elytra and protect the delicate wings that are used for flight. Although Diving Beetles differ in many ways to their terrestrial cousins they have kept the ability to fly and use light reflection on water surfaces to detect new habitats. 

1992: Beetles

A violet oil beetle. Because they are reliant on solitary bees as part of their life cycle and depend on a healthy and diverse wild bee population with wildflower meadows they are classified as under threat.  They exude a yellowish oily substance from their leg joints when in danger hence their name.

2024: Spiders (Illustrator - Richard Lewington)

Do spiders count as creepy crawlers or do they move far too fast?

Sunday Stamps theme - Creepy Crawlers - scuttle over for more at See It On A Postcard    

Patterns

 

1986: International Day of Handicrafts

On the left, Qalamkar, a type of textile printing using carved wooden stamps, a skill which originated centuries ago in the city of Isfahan. On the right Balochi needlework made by the Balochi people who today are found in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

1999: Folk Art

A Rockblad or rock blade, a bride's gift carved from a single piece of wood often with many hearts. These would be put in a bride's box so she could sort through linen and wouldn't have to touch anything with her hands.  This one is from the 19th Century.

2006: Beetles

Always fun to count a ladybird's spots, this one has seven

2021: Jersey Seabirds and Marine Life

A creature full of nature's patterns swimming the oceans, a Loggerhead Turtle, always drawn to warm waters unless following a drift or smack of jellyfish. One could say a smack means a snack although Loggerheads have the widest food range of any sea turtle and eat both animal and plant life.

Sunday Stamps theme - Patterns - more at  See It On A Postcard

Insects

 

2020: Brilliant Bugs (Illustrator - Richard Lewington

They are all around us, brilliant bugs.  The stamps are designed by Richard Lewington, illustrator of many insect guides, never wonder what that bug might be with a field guide to hand.

1953: Beetles

Although as my eyesight is not what  it was so something that sits still on a leaf, branch or on the ground is good. A nice shiny Jewel Bug like this would be perfect. 

2018: Flora and Fauna (Design - Stiina Hovi)

The flash of red on a stem and time to count the spots on a ladybird before she flies away.

1997: Insects (Design - A Ysttri)

The full 7 spots can be seen here - Coccinella septempunctate, our most familiar ladybird, welcomed by gardeners and organic farmers for their voracious appetite for aphids. Even better the 7 spotted ladybird is considered lucky, although not for the aphid.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Insects - See It On A Postcard

Flying In

 

2016: Endangered Species (Design - Petteri Mattila)

A hot summer's day and all is right with the world when these two pygmy damselflies fly in. A species that likes swamps and freshwater marshes but is very sensitive to the slightest change in the environment so is a species under threat.

1994: Flora and Fauna

Unlike the Blue-tailed damselfly which only requires ponds or still water and is prolific, no summer passes without seeing lots of these.

Meanwhile a male and female Common Blue butterfly flutter around a Pyramidal orchid

1963: Butterflies (Design - Liu Shuoren)

Something more exotic, the swallowtail Great Jay and a Hainan violet beak. The island of Hainan is sometimes called the Kingdom of Butterflies for the large number of species found there (approx 650)

1957: Insects (Design - HansFischer)

I'll finish with The Magpie moth, those crazy Victorians used to breed it to obtain pattern and colour variations.  The artist has portrayed it with a gooseberry in the background for the Magpie caterpillar likes to feed on gooseberry and current bushes, I'm partial to those  too.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Dragonflies and Butterflies - fly to See It On A Postcard

How Green

 

1946: Local Motives (Design J Douy; Engraver WV Paris)

Where is our dancer's gaze?

1960: Butterflies and Agricultural Products

Perhaps seeing one of the local butterflies fluttering by, I don't know what the Malagasy call it so will have to stick to its scientific name - Acraea hova.  It lives in forests so the stamp has a nice leafy green background.

1973: Fauna

Next a species that is green, the Golden-fronted Leafbird, also an inhabitant of forests

1990: Birds

But for all over green it has to be this pair of Green-rumped parrotlet found in northeastern South America and the island of Trinidad.  I wondered why it was called a parrotlet and then saw its size - 4.7 inches (12cm) long.

1958: Mongolian Animals

Lastly a very green goat.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Green - See It On A Postcard

Spring Rises

 

1970: Stations of the Cross

Bit short of Easter stamps I haven't used before so it has to be the 'Descent from the Cross' by the Basque muralist Juan de Aranoa y Corredano (1901-1973) from his Stations of the Cross series.  These can be seen in the Amurrio Parish Church. He tended towards the melancholy in his paintings so obviously found the ideal subject.

1960: Flowers II

The flowers return after their winter sleep and yellow carpets of buttercups appear and dandelions, as is their mission,  pop up everywhere, an early flower so vital to pollinators

which are on the wing. The tortoiseshell is always welcome, the first to appear and the last to leave

I won't see the Hawthorne butterfly, no-one knows why they disappeared from the British Isles (in English they were known by a less romantic name of Black-veined white).  Happily the Orange Tip thrives but then they do like damp meadows. It is the true sign of spring being one of the first species to emerge that has not overwintered as an adult. The Swedes know it as the Aurora butterfly - goddess of the dawn.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Easter or Spring - celebrate at See It On A Postcard

Insects

 

2000: Millennium - Life and Earth

The 'Web of Life' stamp featuring Leaf Cutter Ants in London Zoo so no danger of sitting on the ground and discovering from a tickling sensation there is an ants nest nearby and then frantically trying to dust them off.

1961: Insects (Design A Heidrich)

happily Red Wood Ants nest are really big so easily spotted, and fascinating, at a distance.

2020: Brilliant Bugs (Illustrator - Richard Lewingon) 

Here are the all important pollinators busy buzzing, fluttering and hovering around the flowers.. 

From the sights of summer to

1985: Insects

 

the sound of summer and the Wart-Biter Cricket. The weird name is from the Swedish practice in the 1700s of allowing crickets to bite warts from the skin (it has very strong mouth parts). I'm guessing from these fact that it was a Carl Linnaeus naming (Decticus verrucivorus - verruca meaning wart and vorous -to devour). Oh Carl couldn't you have given it a prettier name.  

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Bugs and Creepy Crawlies - at See It On A Postcard
 

Red Is The Colour

 

2010: Visual Illusions (Artist - Youri Messen-Jaschin)

Gravity waves or a wormhole?  Adjust your vision now.  This is one of the Op Art works of Youri Messen-Jaschin  which give the illusion of movement. Mesmerizing.  The full stamp set can be seen here

1986: Childrens Fund - Toys (Design - Ernest Witzig)

Unfortunately I cannot pump this spinning top handle to make it spin into a blur of colour.

1977: Events -  Vevey Vintage Festival emblem

although too much wine can make the world spin. The Vevey Wine Festival in Switzerland only happens every 20 years and is so unique it was awarded  UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2016.  We have all just missed it as this three week bacchanalia happened last year. 😞. 
 

1986: 50th Anniversary of Swiss Winter Relief (Design - Adolf Flückiger)

It is snowing in Switzerland.  Our weather forecasters have been excitedly trailing for a week that the first snow in the UK is going to arrive soon and it has,  although not in my little corner of England but I can see it on the hills. Unless I strap on my hiking boots

2015: Christmas (Design - Bea Würgler)

I won't be  building snowmen yet but this globe would give me 'snow' all year round..

2015: Greetings Stamps (Design - Julia Reichle and Martina Pelosi)

The ladybirds will be oblivious to the weather as they will be hibernating in their chosen hidey-holes, they gather together by species.  I discovered that the collective noun is a 'loveliness of ladybirds'.  Keep on snoozing in your loveliness.  The ladybird is said to bring good luck.

1968: Northern Bullfinch

 

 Meanwhile the bullfinch will be busy feeding on winter seeds.

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is the - Red -  for more splashes of colour go to See It On A Postcard
 

Black and White

2013: Butterflies (Design - Richard Lewington)

The Mabled White butterfly has a preference for purple flowers but this stamp is pure black and white.  Poets have long written of the wonder of butterflies and

2020: Romantic Poets (Design - The Chase; Illustrator - Linda Farquarson)

John Clare wrote at least two about the "Queen of insects" but for the stamp we have two lines that probably sum Clare up "For every thing I felt a love/ The weeds below the birds above".  He also came up with one of my favourite quotes "I found the poems in the field and only wrote them down".   The other stamp features  one of the Lakes poets - Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his Frost at Midnight.  Apart from his renown as a poet he is also famous for being the first 'outsider'  to climb England's highest mountain Scafell Pike and it turned out to be quite a hairy experience. 

For the stamp subject the design company The Chase were given a list of poets and the two lines to use on the stamps. They turned to print maker Linda Farquarson for the black and white linocut illustrations which she made the actual size of the stamp using traditional letter-pressing.  The type is Caslon Old Style invented by the 18th Century British engraver William Caslon which would have been a style used in the poetry books of the day.

1976 William Caxton - 500th Anniversary of British Printing (Design - Richard Gay)

One of the first books William Caxton published in 1477 was Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and he went on to to publish more of Chaucer's collections of poetry.  The Canterbury Tales is featured on one of the other stamps in the set but the stamp above is the only one that is black and white and is a woodcut from 'The Game and Playe of Chesse'. Few things are more black and white than chess.

Coleridge and Scafell on  'Romantic Poets' FDC

 

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Black and White -  at See It On A Postcard.

   

Blue

1962: Child Welfare - Butterflies (Design - Carl Oskar Blase)

In the 1960s Germany produced a series of wildlife stamps with block coloured backgrounds so here are the blue ones starting with this 'Scarce swallowtail'.  A curious name as it is indeed scarce in the UK and Scandinavia but commonly seen all over Europe with the exception of Portugal and Spain who have their own slightly different Scarce swallowtail.

1963: Child Welfare (Design - Schiller)

A kingfisher ready to dive into the blue water

1965: Child Welfare - Birds (Design - Froitscheim)

and a Western Capercaillie with its mating display.  An extraordinary noise will be coming out of the open beak which sounds a bit like like horses hooves and the popping of a champagne cork.

1999: Europa - Parks and Gardens (Design - Silvia Runge)

For wildlife watching visit the Berchtesgaden National Park. Annually a million visitors will arrive in the National Park but the wildlife will have it all to themselves this year.

Haverigg Kite Festival

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is Blue - See It On A Postcard.

Insects

1987: Bee-keeping (Design - Mihai Vamasescu)

In the short cold days of early winter lets imagine the warmth of summer's day and the buzz of bees in a field of sunflowers.

1994: Definitives - Flora and Fauna (Design - Wendy Bramall)

or a bumble bee among the broom flowers with a couple of Clouded Yellow butterflies floating nearby attracted by red clover on the island of Alderney.

Stay by a still pond and watch a hyperactive Blue-tailed damselfly zooming around among water crowfoot and branched bur-reed.  The low values of these stamps sold out by 2001, the higher values would last until 2006.  The full set can be seen here

1971: Butterflies and Moths (Design - P Lambert)

 Head to west Africa to even warmer climes and find (1f )- the African Emperor Moth, Gonimbrascia hecate.  I don't know if it is day or night flying but would guess from being called Hecate it must be night. Coincidentally November 16th was Hecate's Night when she roams the earth with her hounds. A portion of bee's honey and mushrooms (Hecate's Supper) left on the step outside a home means she will bless the inhabitants. The next (2f) is a butterfly, Hamanumida Daedalus also called the guineafowl butterfly because of its colour and patterning.

1962: Postage Due Stamps - Beetles (Design - R Seles; Engraver - G Betemps)

I love catching sight of a glossy black beetle shining in the undergrowth but might get very excited if I saw something as patterned as this although unlikely as Sternotomis Virescens lives in Africa and feeds on the coffee plant.

If you prefer spots to stripes then here is another Longhorn beetle, Sternotomis Gama.  Lastly two beetles for the price of one franc, another Longhorn - Phosphorus virescens which apart from its sulphur-yellow pigment has yellow-green fluorescence, the perfect beetle for a stamp.  It is considered a pest because it bores into the stems of the cola plants.  Our striped friend is a flat-faced Longhorn beetle, Ceroplesis carabarica, its preference is coffee plants.

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Insects - for more fly over to -  See It On A Postcard