My Little Chickadees

This stamp was sent to me from Denise in Canada decorating a postcard, which it did perfectly with stamp and cute border design. One of the 2004 set of John James Audubon wonderful bird paintings. The Canadian postal authority were originally going to photograph from the printed book but the particular black ink used intensified and became muddied so they went back to the original watercolours held by the New York Historical Society (purchased from Audubon's window in 1863) to produce these beautiful stamps.

Audubon painted Canadian birds during two separate journeys north. In 1831 he travelled to the Newfoundland coast before sailing to Europe. In the summer of 1833 he returned to the north shore of the Saint Lawrence and its islands and estuaries, once more to coastal Newfoundland then Labrador, Cape Cod and Nova Scotia.

The Boreal Chickadees live in coniferous woods living mainly in insects and seeds, foraging in flocks as Audubon portrays.  As they live in Canada, Alaska and parts of the US so I have never seen them but can through this stamp and I can travel via the  Xeno Canto site of bird songs and hear them chirp on this sound file:

An entry for Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps.

My True Love Has My Heart

A card from Lithuania by the illustrator Brigita Budryté.  I can discover nothing about her apart from the the fact she illustrates books. I find the painting both amusing and spooky, and open to many interpretations. Are the fairy folk the couple of love, their hearts joined and playful or have they taken someone's heart and are about to play with it?

The card came with

  a stamp of 2008, one of two celebrating the Olympic Games in Beijing. This is the Yacht 'Laser Radial' class. Small one person dingies, part of the women's single-handed discipline. The silver medal in the 2008 Olympics was won by the only sailor in the Lithuanian team, Gintaré Volungevičiūté. 

Thank you Gabija for this fascinating card

Vannes

 L'ancienne école d'artillerie, la Tour du Connétable et les jardins

Back from holiday, and here is the town I stayed for a week. Not intentionally for I was in the hospital after missing the last four steps of the staircase and breaking my femur. The Bretagne Atlantique hospital put me back together and looked after me wonderfully so I am now back in England and letting time, and exercise do the rest. My partner brought me postcards of the city to show me in hospital and on the 13th July market found a vintage postcard seller and presented me with the cards. Now I'll know what date to revisit the city!

The card is of  "The old artillery school, the Connetable's Tower and the gardens".  The tower is medieval and part of the old city walls. The medieval centre is full of pretty timber framed houses. The city sits on the Gulf of Morbihan, a place of islands, boats and harbours, sheltered from the Atlantic.

En Vacance

I am off to the land of yellow postboxes for a few weeks to twirl a few postcard racks. Here is choice of four letterboxes at the main post office in Ploermel, France. Two on the left, the internal post, large and small, to region 56 of Morbihan in Brittany. Exterieur (outside), which we took to mean the rest of France and Etranger (stranger or foreigner), where we put our postcards home. They arrived, so guess we made the right choice, although we did puzzle for a moment as to whether we were outsiders or strangers.

Another Place

Antony Gormley's 100 cast iron figures spread over 3 kilometres on Crosby beach were supposed to be a temporary installation and moved to New York in 2006 but they took the hearts of the locals. Lobbying means they stayed there being covered and uncovered by the ebb and flow of the tide. As is well known the figures are all casts of Gormley's own body.  I picked this card up in Liverpool, I loved the light, the lone sculpture and the tall ships sailing out of Liverpool to an unknown destination in the distance. 

Alishan Forest Railway

My sender, Tanya, tells me that this is Mount Ali and that the old train and old tree are very popular tourist attraction in Taiwan. She also shows me how to write hello in Chinese which is also the language of the postcard description, happily it has a date amongst the Chinese characters of 1968, when I guess this photograph was taken. The photo must be of one of the last steam locomotives to run on this line for in 1969 diesel took over.

Building of the line started in 1895 for logging operations but this narrow gauge mountain railway is now a tourist attraction. The train sets out at the foot of Mount Ali and journeys up 2000 feet through 55 tunnels and 77 bridges and through different vegetation from the tropical to the alpine with  spectacular views of deep ravines.  This is part of the Alishan National Scenic Area, a mountain resort of hiking trails, mountain villages and tea plantations. Sounds wonderful.

The card came with

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one of the 2009 flower definitives.  I guess the Chunghwa Post had just put some more ink into their franking machine as it has blobbed onto both the stamp and the postcard corner. Never mind it is a pretty stamp of Tabebuia chrysantha also known as the Golden Goddess or Golden Trumpet Tree. The flowers appear in Spring before the leaves. The warm and humid climate of Taiwan produces some spectacular plants.  The flowers of this set of 4 were painted by Hung-tu Ko who has also painted the other, ongoing. issues of flower definitives and this year's Alpine Flowers issue.

Thank you Tanya for introducing me to this mountain area of Taiwan

  

CCW #2 - Kents Bank

Continuing my occasion pictures of a postal flavour from the Cumbria Coastal Way, I have arrived at the village of Kents Bank situated near the River Kent estuary. Walk up the hill from the railway station and here is a bowl for a thirsty dog on the steps of the post office. While your dog, real or imaginary, is lapping up cool water perhaps call in

 Post Box # LA11 112 - Kents Bank Post Office, Kirkhead Road

for stamps and an ice lolly. The wall post box is a sturdy George V design from 1934-6.