Svalbard

Aurora (極光)
Norway (2001)
22nd May, 2013. Barentsburg, Svalbard
(Postmark features Rock Ptarmigan (岩雷鳥)

Do you remember a cover from Svalbard on two years ago ? It cancelled with a special postmark features an animal to be found in North Circle, here is an other example from Svalbard. Barentsburg is second largest settlements in Svalbard, but there almost are Russian and Ukrainians.

Except the cancellation, the cover features 4 seal related to Barentsburg, however they are illustrated variety looks of Nordic Bear. 

Mantaritsa nature reserve

Eurasian Capercaillie (松雞)
Bulgaria (2013)
23th May, 2013. Sofia

Once again, Bulgaria issued a nice pre-paid envelope which the imprinted stamp as well as their newest souvenir sheet. The sheet is commemorated Mantaritsa nature reserve, the nature reserve is located at the territory of municipality of Rakitovo, not far away of Batak dam and Tsigov Chark resort. There are kept most magnificent coniferous forests in Bulgaria. The vegetation is impassable for the most part, and resembles a jungle. The most common trees in the reserve of Mantaritsa are spruces, fir and pine, which are about 130-150 years old.

The illustration shown the pine forest and Capercaillie respectively.

Secretarybird

Secretarybird (蛇鷲)
Uganda (2012)
30th April, 2013. Kampala
3rd May, 2013. Sorting Centre, Kampala

The last cover features Secretarybird was come from Eritrea, however it doesn't look good as the cover features 3 species. Here is the new one, it is more beautiful and attractive, the latest WWF issue of Uganda. As before, 4 stamps illustrated different activity of Secretarybird. Although the stamps coordinated by Stamperija, it still collectable to all bird theme stamp collector.

Please specially take a look of the airmail label, it features the logo of Uganda Airlines, but it closed for 20 years. The logo of the airline is Grey Crowned-Crane (灰冠鶴), which is a national bird of Uganda.

Birds of Southern Pacific (1)

From left to right :
70¢ : Friendly Ground-dove (睦雞鳩) ; 50¢ : Swamp Harrier (沼澤鷂)
Tonga (1998)
9th May, 2013. Nuku'alofa

Actually I forget how many pacific birds I have been introduced here, so from this time, I reset it as 1, then follow it in future. Tonga is in the Southern Pacific, it is famous in the world as it is the first country go into new day, thus as a result, it also the first country go into next year. In each year many tourists visit this islands to celebrate new year.

Back to the birds, the recent definitive stamp sets of Tonga are bird theme, it is good news to the theme collector or sadly to collector - a lot of new species may featured on stamps but mostly in high value.Friendly Ground-Dove is dove to be found in west or southern pacific, and widely on Malaya Peninsular. Swamp Harrier also to be found in west or southern pacific and Malaya Peninsular, and some records in Australia.

Those two birds are endangered species.

National bird of Lithuania

White Stork (白鸛)
Lithuania (2013)
6th April, 2013. Vilnjus

White Stork is common bird in Europe, when I was introduced this species in here. After Albania, Latvia, Italy, Macedonia, Portugal and Austria, it is the seventh country to show their White Stork stamp here. In each summer, White Stork will be migrated from sub-Sahara area to Europe, for their next generation. The males mostly come first to find back their nest and females arrive in following dates. When October, the weather of Europe becomes cold, those White Storks with their chick will migrate back to sub-Sahara area, which are large groups across Mediterranean Sea.

White Stork also is a national bird of Lithuania, of course it is easily to obverse this species through out the country, and its neighbourhood countries.

White Stork (白鸛)
Lithuania (2013)
6th April, 2013. Vilnjus

Long-tailed Duck

Long-tailed Duck (長尾鴨)
Åland (2013)
19th February, 2013. Mariehamn

In 2013, Åland Post continoues their Frama series Old Wooden Decoys, the second one is Long-tailed Duck, which also is common bird in the Baltic Sea. as well as Common Eider or other game birds to be more succeeded on the hunting, hunters mostly use wooden decoys which are similar to real species to attract the game closer to hunter. Above first day cover, as the first one illustrated a hunter and how the wooden decoy works.

The registration fee of Åland increased again, supplementary postage label valued €6,85 is instead of €6,10 in last year.