zondag 2 augustus 2015

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!

8 opmerkingen:

  1. Super selection of birds and animals; you saved the best till last with that polar bear.

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  2. What a fantastic selection! The wild horse (pony?) stamp is probably my favorite. I'm a always amazed how well animals are adapted to survive the seasons whereas we are not so much...

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    1. Yes, it is a pony, a Konik pony. They have been ('re')introduced in a nature reserve named Oostvaarderplassen (you can find a link to Wikipedia when you click on 'nature reserves' in the blog post).
      There is one rather recent movie named 'De Nieuwe Wildernis' (the New Wilderness') which is about this reserve. In the trailer you can see some glimpses of these ponies, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRqomdtT8g0
      After the introduction of this 'new' wilderness there was a lot of debate on if it is good or not to introduce large herbivores into this area. Questions arose like, for example, what to do with the many herbivores who don't survive the cold winters because of lack of food. Because of the absence of predators and as it was forbidden to shot the animals, there wasn't a good equilibrum yet. If interested, you can see some movies on youtube on that, too, also one with English subtitles.

      Anyhow, the movie 'Nieuwe wildernis' is a beautiful tribute to Dutch nature, nature of which even the majority of Dutch people wasn't aware until the movie was released.

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  3. What a wonderful selection of animals you have shown. If I ever made it to Australia a kookaburra 'laughing' in the wild be amongst my top things to see.

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    1. And hear :-) indeed the 'laughing Hans'' sound is funny. I hope you will get the opportunity to go to Australia and to enjoy the amazing wildlife there, including seeing and listening to the kookaburra!

      Thank you for your kind comment!

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  4. And you managed to get a lion!
    While beetles would not be my favourite, it is fascinating to see them like this.

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  5. You spent a lot of time writing this post, sure! I love your selection. Some of the stamps are really original.Even if I am not an animal lover (not the same as you, anyway), animals in cages also made me sad.

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