Sunday Stamps: Birds

Sunday 2 October it is Sunday Stamps time again!
The theme is 'Birds', and I think our feathered friends always making a nice theme.

I'd like to show you the stamps on my recent 'chaincard', which has been traveling between the Netherlands, Canada, Thailand and Hong Kong (click to enlarge):



On top you can see my card before the sparrow flew out. And below you can see the influence of a journey over three continents. Apart from some postmark ink, the sparrow arrived rather well!



One of the other chaincard fellows will receive these stamps (I love the puffin and crow stamp!),



See more Birds stamps on and via Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps: Flags or ensigns (2)

Inspired by the Sunday Stamps blog posts by VioletSky, who shared all Canadian province's flags on stamps, and FinnBadger, who made an interesting mail art composition, for which he used the American state flag stamps as postage, I suddenly remembered this stamp sheet.



Issued in 2002 by Dutch Post, in those days still named PTT, this stamp sheet shows the flags of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands, created out of poems/songs about each province.
The stamp edges show something special from the province. For instance the author Annie M.G. Schmidt (well-known by some of you for her 'Jip & Janneke' books but she also made great, critical funny poems) was born in the province Zeeland.
Jan Pelleboer, a man who hosted the weather forecast in his unique way, came from Drenthe, while Fryslân (Friesland) is famous for its ice skates, and the 'Vierdaagse', the international four days walking march, takes place in the city of Nijmegen, which is in the province Gelderland.
And I guess you'll recognize the flag of Brabant now :-)

See more flags on stamps on and via Sunday Stamps.

Sunday stamps: Water birds

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Water Birds'.
As I love birds this is an other favourite subject of mine!

The first two stamps I love to share with you I've published before, be it not for Sunday Stamps. Thanks to FinnBadger I received these two wonderful sea birds: a Frigatebird and a Tufted Puffin. Both on an awesome envelope, made out of a calendar page showing birds by Charley Harper. The Flamingo of course is a water bird, too.
And - thank you FinnBadger for correcting me - I first thought the Frigatebird had been created by this famous artist, too, but it appears to have been designed by Tyler Lang, who has created many more animals illustrations, which at first sight remind me of Charley Harper's birds, but when you look close their style is so different!



The puffin has been designed by Robert Giusti.

And as puffins belong to my most favourite birds and Harper to one of my favourite artists (he has created a lot of bird pictures) and Tyler Lang's artwork I think inspiring, too, no need to say that FinnBadger's mail made my day :-)

In the Netherlands also various birds have been imaged on stamps.
These two stamp sheets have been issued in 2003 as a tribute to the Dutch wad in the Wadden area. The images have been designed by Eke van Mansvelt.



You can see the 'Scholekster'(Eurasian Oystercatcher), the 'Lepelaar' (Spoonbill), two kinds of Geese, the 'Grote Mantelmeeuw' (Great black-backed gull, I guess - there are a lot of kinds of sea gulls), the 'Wulp' (Eurasian curlew), some non-bird animals
and on the sheet itself the 'Visdief' (Common Tern), 'Plevieren' (Plovers).



The Wadden is a part of the north Sea, south of the so-called Wadden Islands. Since 2009 it is a UNESCO world heritage site, nevertheless the area is threatened, by pollution, by business plans etcetera, so I hope (and in fact expect) the area will continue to be protected.

By the way, the postage has increased a lot since 2003. In that year we had to pay € 0,39 for national mail and € 0.59 for international mail (all up to 20 grams). Anno 2016 it is € 0.73 for national mail and € 1.25 for international mail..

See more Sea Birds - and Charley Harper stamps! - at and via the links under this Sunday's Sunday Stamps blog!