Geese

 

A century ago Snow Geese were rare in Greenland today there are between 200 and 2000 individuals coming in on the Atlantic flyway from Canada, numbers are hazy because of the fragmented nature of their distribution in Greenland.

1990: Birds IV (Design - Jens Rosing)

One of the 130 stamps Jens Rosing (1925-2008) produced for Greenland, he also designed their coat of arms.

1985: Protected Animals (Design - Andrea Soest)

Red-breasted Geese, another arctic goose but this one winters in eastern Europe.

1991: Postal Buildings

 Budingen post station where the stagecoach and horse riders travelled to and from Frankfurt.  Today it is a hotel and restaurant.  I wonder if the geese are going to market or just passing with their young herder.

1977: The Twelve Days of Christmas (Design - David Gentleman)

 

"Six geese a-laying"

Sunday Stamps A-Z ; G for Geese,, Greenland, Germany GDR and GB - See It On A Postcard 

B is for Birds

 

1985-89: Birds definitive (1st series) - Nuthatch

 

Andre Buzan first birds stamps for Belgium appeared in 1985.

Goldfinch

They would not be his last

1997-1999: Birds (3rd Series) - Fieldfare

He went on to create many more series, I'm guessing about 11

2002-2005 Birds definitive - Cirl Bunting 

which included the change to the Euro.  In 2010 Belgium post issued a mini sheet and stamps celebrating 25 years of 'Birds with Buzin' which featured raptors. Time marches on and this year another anniversary came along another mini sheet issue - 40 Years of Buzin Birds 'From Pen to Brush' featuring waterbirds.

1978: Birds (Illustrator - Michael F Bryan)

Another prolific stamp designer, Michael Bryan, who covered all manner of subjects for Botswana post including lots of birds. Unfortunately I know nothing about him except that from 1972 to c1988 he had created 194 Botswana stamps. Interestingly his first stamps in 1972 were on the subject of the Mafeking-Gubulawayo Runner Post which would be reissued for its centenary in 1988  (A celebration of the 500 mile relay runner route across what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate).    

Sunday Stamps's A-Z - The Letter B - at  See It On A Postcard 

Song Birds

 See It On A Postcard's Thursday Postcard Hunt  is looking for Song Birds

 

A warm sunny day and to see skylarks soaring to sing is bliss indeed. Valentine's published a popular series of postcards featuring Winifred Austen's bird paintings. This card was sent to a Mrs Roxby Hall languishing in  Leeds Infirmary hospital in the 1950s wishing her a speedy recovery and to soon rise from her bed and be singing like the skylark. Austin (1876-1964) was an illustrator, painter, etcher and aquatint engraver known for her detailed depictions of small mammals and birds portrayed in their day to day life. 

Bringing happiness, a birds chorus.

Alphabet Soup

 

1964: 2500 Years of Bulgarian Art

A head from the 2nd Century and a 19th Century jug, one predating the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and the other many centuries later.

1980: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Percy Bysshe Kelly once said  "We are all Greeks"  Western civilization has it roots in Greece and Hungary remembers their glory. Once the the huge seated figure of Zeus (435BC) stood in his temple at Olympia,  The Hungarians have romanized the famous names of Greece on the map and

1935: Air - Mythologies (Daedalus and Icarus)

it was the Romans who first called the country Greece but to the Greeks it is  Hellas. As can be seen the word written starts with the Greek letter epsilon (originally adopted from the Phoenician letter He -)

1995: Fish - Queen Angelfish

For something different, Cambodian letters or  Khmer script,. In this script words run together in a sentence. Similar to other colonial powers one can see where the French have been in the past on stamps.

1942: Free French Issue

New Caledonia's unique flightless bird, the Kagu. This 'Free French' stamp was issued to show solidarity with the French resistance and De Gaulle's campaign from London in WW2. There were 14 values and colours produced showing the bird, not in flight, but in a jump display showing off its underwing pattern. 

Sunday Stamps is exploring stamps featuring no English words - See It On A Postcard
 

Birds

 

2004: Migrating Birds

On last week's Sunday Stamps a lone bird flew past a lighthouse so here is the rest of the set with views of Alderney.

The FDC illustration increases the number of Yellow Wagtails to three, one of my favourite birds.

1988: Birds

Meanwhile in Bulgaria it is dinner time with a Yellow-legged gull and White Stork

A fishy treat for a Grey Heron, Peter Rabbit meets his end with a Goshawk and the Eagle-owl has found a country mouse.

Sunday Stamps is looking at birds - See It On A Postcard

Island Lighthouses

 

2004: Migrating Birds - Passerines

One of our earliest summer visitors, usually arriving in March, flying past Alderney Lighthouse. The Sand Martins will also be one of the first to leave and head south in September. No winter storms for these birds...

2016: Seasons

St Peter Port Harbour Lighthouse

2016: Lighthouses

The tiny island of Sark lighthouse at Point Robert, now automated, but when all lighthouses were manned perhaps

2014: The History of Manx Playing Cards

they would while away the time playing cards although a lone keeper would have to rely on a game of Patience. The playing card shows Bradda Head Lighthouse located on the Isle of Man's coastal footpath and Douglas Lighthouse with the ferry either making its way to England or Ireland.

Sunday Stamps is keeping a watch for Lighthouses at See It On A Postcard

Ocean View

 

1993: Christmas

I've always loved the calligraphy and sentiment on this FDC. The quote is from "End of the Golden Summer" a coming of age drama set in one long New Zealand summer by the playwright Bruce Mason which he toured as a solo performer all over New Zealand. It would become a ensemble play and later a film. The play is set on the fictional beach of Te Parenga but was actually written at Takapuna where it is now performed every Christmas Day. 

1993: Christmas (Designer - Kristine Cotton)

The stamps show a view of a New Zealand Christmas when the weather is warm, the schools and universities are out for the longest holiday of the year and it is time to head for the beach. The stamps show Christmas baubles, presents, sailing-boards and yes a Christmas tradition the British settlers brought with them steamed Christmas Plum Pudding, just what you need on a baking hot day!

1964: Health Stamps

 
New Zealand have issued many bird stamps, a tradition starting in 1988 with an emu. These are the only two I have that feature a beach where of course there will be gulls, these are Red Billed Gulls. Like their Herring Gull cousins I suspect they will not pass up the chance of a piece of Christmas pudding, or anything else vaguely edible. The Little or Fairy Penguin on the other hand is on a more healthy seafood diet.

Sunday Stamps asks for - A Favourite - See It On A Postcard

Glowing Red

 

1998: Birds

Its that time of the year, enter the robin

1965: Songbirds

or maybe a bullfinch

and a rock thrush.  I wonder where they live?

2011: The Happiness Tree

In a Happiness Tree of course.

1973: Copernicus

For more happiness look to the skies and December's colourful Geminid shooting stars.

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Red - See It On A Postcard

Birds on the Map

 

1988: Fauna

The Eurasian Hoopoe perched between continents

Ferruginous Pygmy Owl breeds in Arizona, South Texas, down through Mexico, Central America and South America.  The Vulturine Guineafowl is the largest of its species and if startled it will run with those long legs rather than fly. It can be found in Central African forests

2000: Birds

(200) - Wattled Starling a nomadic bird found in eastern and southern Africa but its range is expanding. Like all starlings can be found in large flocks and often nests with other starling species (500) - Common Starling, (900) Red Billed leiothrix goes by many names such as Pekin Robin and Pekin Nightingale and its beautiful song can be found in Southern China and the Himalayas

(4000) Bearded reedling, as the name implies, found in Eurasian reedbeds (1000) - the Guianian cock of the rock nests on rocky cliff faces and caves in the humid forests of South America, the nests are constructed of  mud and plants. In photographs it looks a brighter orange than the stamp. (1500) Alpine accentor (the latin word 'accentor' means a person who sings with another). A robin sized bird of Eurasia and North Africa nesting in bushes or rock crevices.

Sunday Stamps theme of - Birds - fly over to See It On A Postcard for more feathered friends.

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

Yellow

 

1947: Flowers (Design - Hans Fischer)

The joy of early spring flowers, I like how this stamp hints at the darkness of winter and the bright yellow of sunny days ahead. This is an Alpine Primrose which I read is now a rare resident of the limestone Alps.

1968: Flowers

Fast forward to summer and the Heliopsis which I love and is sometimes unkindly called the false sunflower so

2000: Millennium - Tree and Leaf

here is the real thing although most spectacular when there are hundreds of sunflowers in a field.

2008: Grains (Design Beatrice Wurgler) + 2007: Birds (Design - Eva Weber)

Golden fields of barley are wonderful in a different way with their quiet rustling in the warm winds of summer. If one walked through the fields a Great Tit might be spotted although is more likely to be seen in woodlands and at the garden feeder.

2013: Europa - Postman's Van (Design - Gunter Gamroth)

Yellow is a popular postal colour and how inviting this image is, it makes me want to jump into the driving seat.  The vehicle is Lloyd Electrowagen of 1911 used for parcel delivery in towns and suburbs.  The German Postal Service continued to use electric vehicles until the 1960s, indeed some of them were so robust that they had been running for 40 years. Today Deutsche Post return to that era in spirit as they hope to have 60% of their vehicles running electrically by 2030.

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

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Coastal Choice

 

1994: Tourism (Design - Colleen Corlett)

A sunny start to the day but a chill in the air  so what will it be - the beach or

2006: Bids (Design - Jeremy Paul) - Peregrine Falcon

a cliff top walk?

1983: Seabirds (Design - J H Nicholson)

Dip in the sea

Manx Shearwater

or bird watching.

1954: Views (Design Albert Decaris; Engraving Pierre Munier)

Atlantic coast or dream of the warmth of Spring in the Mediterranean. 17°C in Ajaccio today. 

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Beaches of Coast -Sea  See It On A Postcard