Birds of the tropics (2)

2000K : Red-collared Lorikeet (紅領吸蜜鸚鵡)
400K : Great Indian Hornbill (雙角犀鳥)
Zambia (2000)
22nd September, 2009. Ndola
23rd September, 2009. Lusaka

Continuous from the last Zambian thread, here is second cover of same series Birds of the tropics. Cockatiel (雞尾鸚鵡) and Amazonian Umbrellabird (亞馬遜傘鳥) are also appear on this cover but only for make-up rate, so this cover included four of five stamps in this single stamp set. Thank you Andrew who lives in Ndola to help me arrange and sent the covers, surprisingly these two covers are sent under correct postage, this situation seems not very common in most African countries.

Red-collared Lorikeet is a species of Australasian parrot in Psittacidae (鸚鵡科) family, wild live parrots to be found in northern Australia. It looks very similar with Rainbow Lorikeet (彩虹吸蜜鸚鵡) but the head of Red-collared Lorikeet is blueish, it is one of the largest parrot in Australasia. Nowadays, Red-collared Lorikeet is a popular pet bird in the world, it is an actively parrot needs width space and frequent changed environment to let parrot does not feel boring.

The stamp description as Rainbow Lorikeet Trichoglossus haematodus, due to Red-collared Lorikeet Trichoglossus h. rubritorquis is a sub-species of Rainbow Lorikeet. However some biologist listed as independent species Trichoglossus rubritorquis.

Great Indian Hornbill is a largest species in Bucerotidae (犀鳥科) family, it to be found in India, Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. The bird specially features a large and width yellowish casque above its bill, the Chinese name of the bird designated as the casque looks like two horns. The live of Great Indian Hornbill above 50 years, however as the damage of inhabited area and illegal hunting, population of the hornbill is decreasing.

Although the stamps are overlapped by modern registration label, the cover also written a registration number 1149 by Ndola post office. This situation because most of postal system in African countries being computerise, small post offices are still using traditional registration label or hand-writing format registration number but central post office records the mails by computer. More examples can be found in Burkina Faso and Gabon.