Sunday Stamps: Butterflies

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Butterflies or moths'.

The first butterfly stamps which come into mind are from a pretty butterfly serie, issued by Correos in Spain. This is one of them, issued in 2011:



A stamp which seems to be 'common', and which shows one of my favourite butterflies (even though I've never seen this 'common swallowtail' in real), is this Belgian one:



In the United Kingdom, Royal Mail has issued butterfly stamps as well, of which I received this one:



These 'citrus swallowtails' arrived from South Africa:



This year Dutch PostNL issues several stamp sheets in collaboration with the 'Ouderenfonds', a charity fund, founded to help elder people.
By the way, on their website - alas in Dutch only - the Ouderenfonds mentions several projects, among them a 'send a card to a lonely elder person' project, and I think the project website's name very suitable: 'no facebook'. I think it a nice initiative, and fortunately there are similar projects in other countries, too (a quick search via google learn me about, among others, this one, and this, and this, and of course we can look around in our neighbourhood or faraway family, I think there are many people to whom a real written card will bring a smile - and see, how coincidentally, this month the Mail a Smile project's theme happens to be 'Butterfly'!).

Regarding the stamp sheets, among them is a serie of four, showing both butterflies and flowers, in relation to the four seasons. One stamp of the spring sheet has been posted some Sundays ago. Above the Crocus stamp there was/is a butterfly, and also one butterfly flew in the stamp sheet edge:



One other is a serie of butterfly stamp sheets, this is one of them:



The illustrations of these stamp sheets have been created by Janneke Brinkman-Salentijn.

By the way, a year ago Dutch post already has issued a serie of four nice stamp sheets showing butterflies, be it photos instead of drawings, but also in relation to the four seasons. You can see them at PostNL's collector's shop website.

A special manner to picture butterflies is shown on this stamp sheet: butterfly silhouets. It is a sheet from the serie 'Mooi Nederland' ('beautiful Netherlands'), dedicated to the city of Amersfoort.
I was wondering what butterflies have to do with this particular city, and the only information I found is that there has been constructed a 'butterfly way' throughout the city, with butterfly friendly flowers planted in several locations.



If you look close you can see a blue butterfly on the stamps themselves.

See more colourful and beautiful butterfly stamps at Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps: Fish in the water

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Fish in the Sea (or lake, or ocean)'.

First I thought it would be hard to find fish stamps, but wandering through my received mail, there appeared to be more than one Fish stamp!

The first fish I would like to show is a fresh water fish, the pike ('snoek' in Dutch).
This fish stamp is from the United Kingdom (thank you, John!):



I have an old Dutch stamp sheet which shows a pike, too, but alas I can't find it to scan for you at the moment. Fortunately you can see it somewhere else on the internet. That stamp sheet was issued in 2005 and showed flora and fauna in the Naardermeer ('Lake of Naarden'), the oldest protected nature area in the Netherlands.
Recently, ten years later, the Dutch post issued a new stamp sheet on this lake. This time a ten stamps sheet, of which the bottom two show underwater life. Among them the pike again:



From the lakes in the countries at the North sea to some more southern European sea, close to Spain. Eva sent me fish mail (not to be confused with fishing mail :-) ) and on the cover were two sea mammal stamps, and two fish:



A stamp from the far south. In the South African sea beautiful fish are living. Among them this one:



And from the south to the far east. I was so lucky to receive some Asian fish stamps.

From China:



From Taiwan:



From Sri Lanka:



And finally, a stamp from the Netherlands, showing an Indonesian fish:



More interesting and beautiful fish stamps you can see on the Sunday Stamps blog and the related links mentioned there!

Sunday stamps: Animals in the wild

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is - like many other themes - a favourite of mine: animals in the wild.

One family of animals I admire for both their beauty and for something we, humans, are not able to do: birds!
Bird are able to fly (except for ratites of course). So caged birds I always think sad. While watching birds fly in the wild always makes me smile and provides a sense of freedom.

This great flying tern stamp I received from South Africa.
By the way, a flying tern is in the logo of the international bird protection organization Bird Life, and also in the logos of several partners, among them the Dutch and South African bird protection NGO's.



Love the way the stamp has been postmarked across. As if it is to show how high a bird can fly :-)

The following stamps show the contrast between a caged bird and birds in the wild:



Well, the caged bird isn't on a stamp himself, but is part of a larger stamp sheet, of which the stamp shows an other freely flying species.
The godwit (grutto in Dutch) is a bird who thrives in the grass-land. Grass-land birds have been, and still are, threatened by intensive farming in our densely populated country. Fortunately there are several initiatives to help farmers combine farming with nature protection (but still it's not enough, I am afraid).

Other flying birds are these wild ducks, beautifully pictured on a Finnish stamp. This bird is common in many countries.



To my pleasure I see that both Violet Sky and Joy have posted Australian stamps. In Australia some of my all-time favourite animals are liviung: the echidna, the platypus, the kookaburra, the cassowary and the brushturkey. The last-mentioned I've never seen on a stamp, the others I did see.
Among them this kookaburra:



And, my favourite stamp (which I fortunately received more than once!), the platypus:



Some other wild life, tiny ones:



However, the words 'Animals in the wild' will make most people think of larger animals, mammals to be specific.

Animals in forests and nature reserves, from Belarus, Russia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands (the latter is a personalized stamp, temporary issued by natuurlijkefoto.nl):











Wild animals like elephants....



... and lions (this is from a stamp sheet showing more animals, that is, silhouets):



And arctic animals, alas endangered, too:



Check Sunday Stamps for more animals-in-the-wild stamps!

Sunday stamps: Unusually shaped and oversized stamps

Het thema van Sunday Stamps van deze zondag is 'postzegels van ongewone vorm of grote grootte'.
Van bovenstaande postzegels, uit Rusland, Tsjechië en Slovenië, zijn postzegels met brug resp. gebouw breder, en is de theater postzegel hoger dan gewoonlijk.
Hieronder een Tsjechische, die een stuk groter is dan gewoonlijk:

Today Sunday Stamps' theme is "Unusually shaped or oversized stamps".
The Russian bridge stamps and Slovenian building stamp you see above, are wider than usual, the Czech theater stamp is higher.
Below an other Czech stamp, which is a lot larger than usual:



Ook deze mooie postzegel uit Spanje is groot. Niet alleen het complete vel; de postzegel zelf meet maar liefst 5,1 x 4,1 cm.
Also this lovely stamp from Spain is larger than usual. The complete sheet is, but even the stamp itself has a larger size: 5.1 x 4.1 cms.



Toen ik begon met postcrossen, ontving ik opvallend veel kaarten van mensen uit Finland. Het viel me op dat Finland heel aparte vormen van postzegels heeft, zoals je hieronder kunt zien.

When I started postcrossing, I received many postcards from Finland. And I learned that in Finland there are several stamps of very unusual shapes!



Onderstaande postzegel (de rechter) lijkt op het eerste gezicht een 'gewone' postzegel. Maar kijk eens naar dat uitstulpinkje daar boven!
Een gewoon rechttoe-rechtaan stansapparaat krijgt dat niet snel voor elkaar!

This one below (the one on the right) at first sight seems a normal stamp. But see the 'bulging' on top! A usual punching machine won't succeed in making other edges than straight lined.



Ook deze 'normale' Russische postzegels hebben een bijzondere bovenkant:
Also these 'common' Russian stamps show a unusual upper side:



En naast bovenstaand Fins hart, hier ook een hartvormige postzegel, uit Japan:
And besides the Finnish heart-shaped stamp above, here also a heart from Japan:



En nog meer harten, uit Turkije:
And many more hearts, from Turkey:



En dan zijn er de ronde postzegels. Naast de bekende Amerikaanse ronde 'forever' postzegel nu ook een ronde kerstzegel, en natuurlijk de Marokkaanse ronde postzegel, vorig jaar uitgegeven vanwege de 'Week van de Solidariteit' (en zo te zien ieder jaar uitgegeven, hier bijvoorbeeld met wat lagere frankeerwaarde):

And there are round postage stamps. Apart from the well-known round American 'forever' stamp there's a round Christmas stamp now, and of course this Moroccan stamp, issued in 2012 for the 'Week of Solidarity' (and so to see issued every year, see here with a different postage value):



Een ruitvormige postzegel uit Zuid-Afrika:
A rhombic stamp from South Africa:



Nederland had in 1989 deze driehoekige postzegel (hier twee afgebeeld, de zijdes zijn 3,3 cm lang). Jammergenoeg zijn de guldenpostzegels sinds 1 november niet meer geldig.
In the Netherlands this triangled postage stamp was issued in 1989 (here two are shown, their edge is 3.3 cms). It's currency is 'gulden', but alas from the 1st of november 2013 the mail company stopped to accept the gulden stamps as postage stamps.



Andere bijzonder gevormde postzegels zijn de volgende twee. De eerste is van de Boekenweek van 2010. En al is de postzegel zelf bijna normaal van formaat, het omliggende vel is een soort boekenlegger. Ik heb er een lineaal langs gelegd zodat je een indruk krijgt van de grootte:

Other unusucal shaped stamps are the following two. The first is from the 'Week of the Book' in 2010. The stamps itself almost has a ususal size, but the surrounding stamp sheet looks like a bookmark (I put a ruler here so you can verify the size :-).



En deze is helemaal bijzonder! Een 'pop-up' oftewel 3D postzegel, uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van de Kinderboekenweek 2012. Zie ook dit filmpje.

And this one (there are two on one sheet) is very special! It's a so-called 'pop-up' or 3D stamp, issued for the 'Week of the Children's Books' in 2012. You can see how it works in this movie.



Tot slot zijn er talloze postzegels die op zich een normaal formaat hebben, maar met een groot stuk vel eromheen. Zoals de verschillende 'Mooi Nederland' uitgaven, en vele andere.
Toevallig ontving ik gister heel lieve post van Wilma uit Canada, en zij stuurde me bij haar schrijven ook deze postzegels, deel uitmakend van een ongewoon gevormd postzegelvel. Voor het onderwerp - Superman - natuurlijk heel toepasselijk.

Finally, there are many postage stamps which do have a usual size, but the rest of the sheet is large. In the Netherlands for instance these 'Mooi Nederland' stamp sheets have been issued. And many more.
I happened to receive a very kind mail from Wilma in Canada yesterday. She added this unusual shaped and sized stamp sheet (but of course apt for the subject: Superman!).



Thank you very much, Wilma, Eva and all postcrossers and other snail mail lovers who have sent these wonderful stamps!