Art of Turkey

L : European Roller (藍胸佛法僧) ; R : Waldrapp (隱䴉)
Turkey (1976)
13th July, 2009. Pasaport, Ízmir

Thanks A. Demír sent me many beautiful covers with his own illustrations, here is one example of his works. This cover features four stamps and two of them are birds, they are European Roller and Waldrapp. Wild life waldrapps are live in northern Morocco and Turkey, these two groups of waldrapps don't have any touch, and the population of northern Morocco group only recorded 500 birds currently but no more of Turkey one recorded after 1992.

More than 300 years ago, waldrapp was begining disappear from Austria to whole Europe. But as religion reason of Muslim thought the bird can guild them to Mecca, area of Birecik of Turkey kept 500 pairs of waldrapp in 30's year of last century, however it decreased to only one before bleeding season in 1990 but it dead afterward. Now the place feeds couple of birds humanly, they are free except bleeding season of autumn. Nowadays, except those 500 birds live in northern Morocco, there are have 1,100 birds feed in zoological gardens, locations include Europe, America and Japan. Those european countries have been tried to reintroduce waldrapp but not successful.