In: from Germany

This beautiful postcard, showing local wildlife, was sent by Margit from Germany.
Of these German animals, the two animals on the rocks - the marmot and the chamois - don't live in the Netherlands, as there are no mountains in our country.

Until receiving this postcard I didn't know that the (North-American) raccoon is living in Europe, too. But a short search in the internet taught me that raccoons have been introduced in 1934 in Germany, and have been introduced later in Germany and France also in some other ways. They appear to feel comfortable here, and have expanded their habitat a little to other countries, too.

The card was accompanied by this matching stamp, issued for the protection of the environment, the Alps in this picture. You can see the marmot again, and the steinbock.



And Margit surprised me with an other great postcard! The platypus is native to Australia, but I am very happy that this platypus traveled from Tasmania via Germany to my home.



On the back a pretty stamp showing the Löwenburg (Lion's Castle) in Kassel.



Thank you very much, herzlichen Dank, Margit!

In: from Morocco

From Eva I received this wonderful combination of a map card of Africa: both on a postcard and on the stamp.

The figure on the stamp has been created by the well-known artist Giacometti (of whom I always had thought he was Italian, but just now I learned he was born in Switzerland), and the map card below has been created by Marianne Sztyma from Poland.



Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

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!