Field birds in British Isles

Here I would present three items came from British Isles but they were sent from three different places respectively. Those birds shown below are very common on the islands, either in field, gardens or bank of rivers. They are small, can sing nice songs and pleasant.

Great Britain

Maxicard

Song Thrush (歐歌鶇)

Great Britain (1998)

10th June, 2008. Chelmsford, Essex

A popular garden songbird can be found in farmland and most of gardens, however the populations in England are decreasing in recent years, now it is Red Listed species. In England, there are about one million residents recorded. The cancellation of the maxicard is date-postmark of Chelmsford, a city in the east of England. There have a wetland in the town centre and most bird-watchers obverse the birds in there.

Ireland

Left : Goldcrest (戴菊) ; Right : Common Blackbird (烏鶇)

Ireland (2002)

29th April, 2008. Dublin

Goldcrest is the smallest bird in isles, mostly can be found them in coniferous forests and woodlands, also suburban area and gardens. A resident in most area through whole the year but during summer in north Scotland. Common Blackbird is the most common in field and gardens. As named as blackbird, overall its feather are black but with yellowed bill. Above cover franked with three definitive stamps, birds were issued on 2002 and wildflower was issued on 2006, which for replaces bird issue. 10c is illustrated the Mountain Avens (仙女木), a Wild Flower common to the Burren.

Isle of Man

Barn Swallow (家燕)

Isle of Man (2000)

25th April, 2008. Douglas

Barn Seallow is very common in the world, which likes nesting under eaves. Can be found them where have worms or small insects, lives in northern area but widely seen them in summer. Isle of Man is in the middle of Britain and Ireland, a part of Crown dependency of Great Britain.

Leopard Seal and Adelie Penguin

Leopard Seal (豹海豹)

Australian Antarctic Territory (2001)

15th February, 2009. Casey Station

Leopard Seal is second large seal in Antarctic, just after Southern Elephant Seal (南象海豹). Back colour is dark grey but light greyed abdomen, however it named leopard as its neck with black spots. Killer Whale (虎鯨) is its only natural enemy, smallest marine life like krill to large animal penguin also can become its food.

This set of WWF stamp shown the Leopard Seals playing with Adelie Penguins (阿德利企鵝), actually those penguins look facing danger as sometimes Leopard Seal kills them. When seal wants to catch them, it will lay under the water and wait penguins jump into water.

The cover was sent from Casey Station of AAT, that means I collected two station's postmarks. The postmark features a couple of Australian Sea Lion (澳洲海獅), they look very cute. Also have one signet on the left-bottom of envelope illustrated Adelie Penguins lay on a wooden case, do you think these three penguins look like escape the dangerous ?

Steller's Eider

Front

Steller's Eider (小絨鴨)

Åland (2001)

Back

Arctic Tern (北極燕鷗)

Åland (2000)

16th February, 2009. Mariehamn

Before I only collect bird stamps, issues from some countries are very attractive for me and continue to collect them, Åland is one of them. It doesn't issue many stamps in each year, just around 20 to 25 stamps, and they are not costly. However, it is not easy to find posted envelope from there - if not visit or travel to there.

Above mail, thanks for correspondence of Åland Post, helped me coordinate the cover. As the registered label too large for C6 size envelope, they found a plastic bag put all things together. I franked it on the back side of envelope after it arrived.

Steller's Eider is a rear migratory bird found in northern countries. As seen in the stamps, male feather is much colourful than female which only have browned colour. They bleeding in small pound but live in near shore. On the back side of the cover features another bird called Arctic Tern, it has been appeared on Portugal stamp and shown here before.

Dear swap partners, as some reasons, swap posted First Day Cover activity will be suspended on May, that means I will not have ability to send you posted First Day Cover in future, I am sorry for this information. However normal exchange will not have any change, I am happy to swap ordinary covers from your place, thank you.