Black Birds

 

1985: Native Birds

A conservation success, in 1980 the Black Robin had the smallest population of any bird species due to non-native predators. Today there is a stable population of about 300 on two New Zealand islands.

1998|: |Pro Juventute

No such problems with the Great Crested Grebe, estimated to have a global population of over a million.

1970: Birds

Common Black Hawk, also known as the Crab Hawk for its food choices are -  crabs, crayfish and amphibians. It hunts low along streams and sometimes wading in the water.

St Vincent have Queen Elizabeth on their bank notes and stamps so like us will be seeing many changes. 

1987: 40th Anniv of Wedding of Queen Elizabeth and 150th Anniv of Queen Victoria's Accession

The Queen and the christening of Prince Charles, we will have to get used to calling him King Charles. Weird to hear the national anthem as God Save the King at her Remembrance service in St Paul's Cathedral this week  She had a unique relationship to St Vincent as in all her duties  relating to the islands she spoke an acted as their constitutional monarch - Queen of St Vincent and the Grenadines and not as Queen of the UK.

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

Hatches, Matches and Dispatches

Missing last weeks Sunday Stamps I thought I would combine its theme of monarchs and presidents and this weeks theme and start with a family photograph of the Christening of Prince Charles in 1948 with the then Princess Elizabeth. The Caribbean island of St Vincent issued a set of stamps in 1987 to celebrating both the Queen's Ruby Wedding and the 150th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne of which this is the commemorative sheet.  In a link to the latter theme the christening robes are the ones worn by Queen Victoria's children and given to Elizabeth by her grandmother Queen Mary.

1967: Albanian Paintings

It is lovely weather for a wedding here at the moment and as sunny as this one in Albanian, a detail from "Dasma Shkodrane" (Shkodra Wedding) by Kolë Idromeno (1860-1939), who was a bit of a polymath being a painter, sculpture, photographer, architect and engineer. He was the first person in 1912 to show motion pictures in Albania  and corresponded with the Lumière Brothers. His paintings and photographs show local culture and this wedding was taking place in Shkoder, the regional capital of Northern Albania and one of the oldest towns in the country. They have houses with high walls which Idromeno shows in the rest of his painting.

1947: Wedding of Princess Elizabeth

The Queen was married in slightly grander surroundings of Westminster Abbey in November 1947 which was the same place chosen by her

2011: Marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton

grandson and his bride. The cover combined the 2011 Royal Wedding stamps and  the 900th Anniversary of Westminster Abbey stamp of 1966 showing the fan vaulting of the Henry V11 Chapel .  The Abbey has been the venue of many royal marriages and even more royal coronations since 1066. Many monarchs are buried there as is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a soldier from the first World War who as the expression goes, known only to God. 

1945: Roosevelt Mourning Issue

To complete the life cycle I end with the death of Franklin D Roosevelt who probably vies with President Kennedy in the number of times appearing on other countries stamps. Roosevelt made a famous speech to the Greek resistance to fight on during the Second World War and although he did not live to see the declaration of victory in Europe he did see Greece's liberation from the Axis powers in 1944.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of Birth, Marriage and Death