I am greatly indebted to member Ton Plug for bringing these small mysteries to my attention as I had never seen them before. And after a few hours of internet excavation, whilst better informed, I am still a little uncertain about them.
The accompanying images show two Guyana stamps – a pair of a $6 Northern Lapwing (Vanellus Vanellus) (a and b), and then a further pair of the same stamps surcharged and overprinted $20 (c and d). But when were they issued? Which is a pretty a good question, because I am not sure.
Fig. a – Smaller $6 (square) version
Fig. b – Smaller $6 version found on cover 2015
Fig. c – Surcharged – hand-stamped version (left)
Fig. d – Surcharged printed version
You’ll probably recognise the design. Guyana produced two mini-sheets entitled “Birds of the World” for “Philakorea 94” and issued them on 16th August 1994. The sheets, each with twelve designs, depicted a variety of species but only two of which could actually be found in Guyana. Needless to say, the Northern Lapwing was not one of the native birds and it is amazing that they didn’t use the local sub-species of the Southern Lapwing (Vanellus c. cayennensis). The stamps on both sheets included the event logo and had a vertical rectangular format, each with the value of $35.
This new permanent value international postage stamp was designed by Thierry Mordant, an artist who has created many illustrations and various postage stamps for New Caledonia, France and the Principality of Monaco.On this new stamp, two masked boobies (Sula dactylatra) wearing Christmas beanie hats are engaged in the vital task of carrying traditional seasonal gifts from the shores of New Caledonia.
These large seabirds are both striking and graceful, with their white and black plumage, yellow beaks and black masks around beak and eyes. They are quite rare within the area covered by New Caledonia’s lagoon. Masked boobies prefer to nest on remote islands and islets (Carey, Chesterfield, Entrecasteaux, Matthew and Hunter), and are expert freefalling plunge divers. They can plunge dive into deep water from a height of over 30 metres to pick off prey from schools of fish or catch large squids!
Here is a well-known series that might just catch you out.
The South African 2000 Flora & Fauna set, issued in November of that year is large – twenty seven issues, but only five of which are birds. The bulk of the stamps are fish and flowers. To add to the mix, many of the flowers were also repeated as self-adhesive stamps with standardised values, but smaller in size (20x25mm). There were ten for this special rate format, so a complete set is 37 stamps.
The whole set, including fish and flowers are pretty colourful, but I am tempted to say, almost garish. If you find one of the flowers or fishes on cover, you’ll know what I mean. The bird element seems relatively sober in design and takes up most of the higher values.
One of the consequences of the Coronavirus situation is that I am spending more time at home than I might otherwise do, primarily to “keep safe”. Naturally, this is proving difficult to do, because I am eager to explore the county of Dumfries and Galloway, which is now my new home.
I was sifting through my new bird stamps from Bosnia Herzegovina that had just arrived, when on the radio, I hear a story about five peacocks that have roamed the village of Henfield (West Sussex). The police had allegedly threatened these peacocks with death, following complaints from some villagers about the impact of the peacocks on gardens and property. A rival group have got together to save the birds from extinction and to provide a more permanent home, to avoid them roaming the streets and gardens of the village. Ordinarily I would not have been at home to hear such a story. Coincidentally, one of the stamps that I had in front of me when the radio blared out this story was the 27 March 2020 BH Pošta issue of a peacock (Pavo cristatus) in a miniature sheet format, as below:
The IGPC website does offer a few opportunities to explore what I have termed incongruous bird stamp issues. Some of these are reviewed in this article.
Inca Tern (Larosterna inca)
On 16 May 2019, Guyana issued a set of five stamps that celebrated the Inca Tern. Both the souvenir sheet, which features the $800 value; and the four stamps printed in a second sheet (with values of $100, $300, $500 and $700) are impressive in the design and quality of the photographic images. A worthy addition to the global catalogue of bird stamps, I would have thought.
But there is, of course, a clue in the title. The American Bird Conservancy website – where the Inca Tern featured as bird of the week back in 18 July 2014 – describes the usual habitat of this bird as being along the Western edge of South America, from Peru all the way down to Chile. Its territorial range doesn’t stray much beyond that coast. That is because its natural food source is in the cold waters of the Humboldt [or Peru] Current that flows northwards from the South Pacific Ocean up the Western coastline of South America.
