Cover from Germany…

 

Precious Stones

The German Post has issued a beautiful set of 3 stamps on 2 January 2012  featuring precious stones namely Ruby Sapphire and and Emerald. With this issue German Post   celebrates the new 2012 year . These stamps are surcharged with extra amount and are being sold as welfare stamps in favor of voluntary welfare.

Thanks to Mr Wolfgang Beyer for this nice cover !!

New WWF  Stamps from Bahamas

Flamingos

 

Date of Issue : 21 March 2012

This stamp issue, produced in association with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), illustrates the National Bird of the Bahamas.

Long ago, these beautiful birds were found all over the Bahamas, but they were killed for food and sport and taken away on passing ships on which they died. Now they are a protected species and watched over by the Society for the Protection of the Flamingo in The Bahamas through the Bahamas National Trust, a statutory body set up in 1959.

Caribbean flamingos, also called the greater flamingo and American flamingo, with their long spindly legs and feet, long and gracefully curved necks and fantastically bright pink feathers, legs and webbed feet are quite unmistakable. Another unique feature is of course their large hooked bill which is again pink but with a black tip. They grow to a height of around 47 to 55 inches and have a wingspan of around 5 feet. The sexes are similar in appearance although males tend to be larger than the females.

The Caribbean flamingo generally breeds between March and mid-July. Flamingos are very skittish and will fly away if disturbed. They are very vocal and have numerous calls. Breeding pairs have location calls to help locate each other and alarm calls are used to warn the group of danger. The usual call is a loud goose-like honking sound. The chicks even make calls while they are in the egg, which their parents learn to recognize.

The flamingo prefers areas with plenty of mud and water such as mudflats, brackish lakes and shallow coastal lagoons where it uses its backwards bending legs to stir up the mud in search of food which comprises seeds, blue-green algae, crustaceans and molluscs.

They are sociable creatures and live and breed in large colonies of several hundred or even thousands of individuals. Read More…