Netherlands Kingfisher overlooked!

 A correspondent informed me that I had overlooked a Kingfisher on the Landgoed Haarzuilens sheet issued in August. I could not see it, but found a better image of the sheet which confirmed that there is such an image on the right side, 4th stamp down. The shape is good, but the colours are all wrong.

Surprisingly, this is the first occurrence of this species on a Dutch stamp. Hopefully, a collectable example will appear in a future issue.

Vanuatu and PCi

Commonwealth Stamps Opinion informs us that Vanuatu Post has fallen into the clutches of Philatelic Collector Inc, and so it is unlikely that any more indigenous birds will appear on future stamps.

A sheet of six stamps celebrating the Smithsonian has one bird Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus), which may well be my last mention of Vanuatu.

Birds of the World from PCi

  Commonwealth Stamps Opinion has listed various issues produced by Philatelic Collector Inc. in their Birds of the World series. They are published on behalf of Cook Islands and Tonga, but probably do not feature birds of those islands. I do not intend to list these, but ignore them as I also ignore those from Stamperija.

Unidentifiable birds on new stamps from Finland

Finland has issued two stamps commemorating the Posti Art Prize 2020. One of the stamps has silhouettes of two birds perched in a tree. I contacted the designer, Janne Laine, for help in identifying the birds, and here is his response: "Unfortunately I have no idea what the bird was. Actually its the same one with different poses. Photoetching is also unsharpening the bird. And although the stamps are representing the Finnish forest and birdlife, the bird might be photographed in Australia."

Malawi Domesticated Birds (2018/9)

When I listed this issue, I assumed that the Quail was Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix). However, Tino Mischler found the source image used for the stamp, which confirms that the species is actually of a female Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). I did not collect this stamp.

Colombia 2002 Hidden Parrot identified

In 2002, Colombia issued a set of 8 stamps featuring Natural Resources of the country. The stamps were illustrated by Cesar Landazabal and my initial analysis of the set left 4 birds unidentified. Three of these were soon identified, but a partially hidden parrot in flight was still unidentified.

 My correspondent in Colombia has consulted Cesar Landazabal who provided a copy of his artwork for "B" and who confirmed that the partially hidden parrot is Indigo-winged Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi).

Guinea-Bissau Small Birds, 1996

A correspondent found a set of 4 stamps and souvenir sheet apparently issued by Guinea-Bissau in 1996 which is not listed on my site, nor on Kjell Scharning's. He informed me that the MICHEL catalogue lists it as No. 1243-1246 and MS 299 (containing MICHEL No. 1247). Stanley Gibbons online catalogue does not list any issue for this country for 1996. I found an Ebay sale with the souvenir sheet, but at US$99, I considered it too expensive!

The species featuring in this issue are not named on the stamps, but appear to be Cardinal Woodpecker, Crimson Seedcracker, Pied Kingfisher, Red-fronted Parrot and Village Weaver. Any help with Guinea-Bissau 1996 identifying these birds or any information about the issue would be most welcome.

UPDATE Tino Mischler has identified the red bird as Crimson Seedcracker. As most of the birds occur in Guinea-Bissau, I will list them, but probably not collect them. Why are they so expensive?

PCi's Birds of the World series

Commonwealth Stamps Opinion has published details of several issues on the theme "birds of the world" issued in the name of various territories that are under Philatelic Collector Inc.'s "umbrella". I could not find these issues on the PCi website, but I am sure they will appear in due course. A second lot of images show the full extent of this unnecessary deluge. I do not intend to list these, and I would be very surprised if any are relevant to my collection. If one searches on https://www.delcampe.net/ for "Exclusive birds 2019" there are currently over 70 hits, though some are duplicated.

Latvia stamp we missed or ignored

In 1998, Latvia issued a single stamp to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of First Latvian Stamp. The first stamp is surrounded by faded images of more recent stamps which includes on the left side a stamp issued in 1995 featuring White-backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos).

Also, one of the Coat of Arms series issued in 1995 and again in 1996 featuring the Arms of Grobina features a stylised Common Crane (Grus grus), but it is too stylised for me.

Domain name expired!

My main site, www.bird-stamps.org, may have become unavailable to some visitors as the domain name expired. I have renewed it today, but this may take a few days to take full effect.

Latvia: 2006 50th Anniversary of Europa Stamps

In 2006, Latvia issued 4 stamps to celebrate 50 years of Europa stamps. The top value has the two stamps issued by Latvia in 1999 which have been cancelled by the special postmark used on the FDCs issued at the time. The postmark has the image of a White Stork.

Estonia's Bird of the Year: Nightjar on live webcam

Looduskalender is hosting a live webcam of a Nightjar on its nest in Estonia. Two chicks are present in the nest which has an adult sitting tight during the day. After midnight UK time, the adults feed the chicks. Estonia is 2 hours ahead of UK.

10th July. It looks like the family has dispersed.

A mixture of "spotted" thrushes

Tino Mischler has been checking through the stamps on my pages for Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) and Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorus) and has made some observations about anomalies.

The stamp from Turkish Cyprus which is supposed to show T. philomelos actually has a bird that is right for T. viscivorus (Greyish colour and cheek markings).

Conversely, the stamp from Bahrain listed as T. viscivorus shows a bird that looks more like T. philomelos: brown back, no vertical eye-stripes.

I shall change these two identities in my next update.

The best example of T. viscivorus would appear to be the stamp issued by Bulgaria in 1999.

Possible disruption of my website

I have been experiencing some technical problems with the laptop that I use to maintain my website.

I will try to overcome these issues during April, but if for any reason I am unable to update my main site, I should be able to keep this blog up to date.

Also, I have noticed that Natural Science Stamps has not been updated since 19/2/19 without any reason being posted. It occurred to me that the same could happen to my site. So, if that should happen, I shall try to post news on this blog, or arrange for this to happen.

Europa 2019: National Birds

We are probably all aware that PostEurop's theme for 2019 is "National Birds", and Europa Stamps blog is carefully listing issues that we have been made aware of. The same blog informs us that we can use an app to scan some of the stamps which will enable us to hear sounds of the bird scanned.

Today, I used the app on my Android phone to scan one of the Gibraltar stamp images. I did not hear any sound, but there was an option to link to somewhere to order the stamp. For Gibraltar, the correct page came up in my browser, but details of the issue were not yet available.

More interestingly, there is a link to "More Bird Stamps" which was a great surprise, as in addition to those we already knew about, there are several stamps illustrated of which I was not yet aware, including a new species on stamps: Greece has Western Rock Nuthatch (Sitta neumayer).

NB. PostEurop clarified its definition of "National Birds" to be "National birds are native birds living on the territory of a country", which gives much more scope than most of us initially thought. 

More coming from PCi!

I noticed some new sales on Delcampe from a seller in Russia featuring birds of prey with the names of territories which are clients of PCi. These items are not on PCi's website, so I checked with the company.

Apparently, they are official issues and will be in the next new issue bulletin shortly.  While they are official and releases at the post offices did take place PCi were surprised to see them on the market already.

I will await better images on PCi's website before listing them.

Intriguingly and worryingly, PCi also informed me that this issue is expected to be part of a larger collection of “birds of the world” that is expected to be ongoing.

Update As these are all shown on PCi's website, I have listed them, but if the future "birds of the world" series appears, I may ignore them like I do for Stamperija's output.

Moldova Birds of Prey

A sheet of 12 stamps featuring the heads of various birds of prey has appeared on a Delcampe sale. I cannot find any reference to this on the Moldova Post website nor on the International Moldovan Philatelic Society site.

Update Correspondents have pointed out to me that the Delcampe seller has several other similar sales, all apparently in the name of Moldova and issued in 2018. I regret raising this as the set is obviously not official.

Birdpex8 PCi stamps released

The Birdpex8 issues have been announced officially by Philatelic Collector Inc. and are available for purchase. More news here.

Birdpex8 PCi stamps reinstated

I have been assured by PCi that these stamps were released to postal counters in early May, and should be available for purchase eventually, so I have reinstated the 5 items in my listing.

PCi Birdpex non-issued stamps removed

The expected Birdpex issues for PCi territories (Tonga, Penrhyn, Aitutaki, Cook Is. and Niuafo'ou) have not appeared to be available. I shall therefore remove them from my listing for later reinstatement if they should be actually issued.