Pygmy Cormorant

Pygmy Cormorant (侏鸕鶿)
Serbia (2011)
24th May, 2011. Kanjiža

It is the third set of WWF series in 2011 I collected. Not much special but seem nice enough, it features Pygmy Cormorant. This species breeds in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, and it partially migrate to further south for winter. Due to the drainage, inhabit lose, pollution and illegal hunting, the population of Pygmy Cormorant is decreasing and now be listed as near threatened in IUCN list.

Birds of the Serbian cities

22d : House Sparrow (家麻雀)
33d : Caucasus Black Redstart (高加索赭紅尾鴝)

46d : Rock Pigeon (原鴿) ; 50d : Great Tit (大山雀)
Serbia (2010)
12th April, 2010. Belgrade (first day postmark)
26th April, 2010. Kanjiza
5th May, 2010. Hongkong

In last month (April, this post was written on mid-May), Serbia Post issued a set of attractive bird stamps with Serbian city sights, they are Pigeon Highflier, Great Tit, House Sparrow and Black Redstart respectively. These four birds are commonly to be found in south-east European countries, especially in the cities of this area. The Pigeon Highflier, also calls Rock Pigeon but the stamp shown Serbia one is in oddly reddish colour. House Sparrow is widely lives in Eurasian area, however due to the destruction of environment, the bird near extinct in Guangdong area of China except Hongkong and Macao. Black Redstart, formally called Caucasus Black Redstart Phoenicurus ochruros ochruros is a sub-species of Black Redstart which only to be found in Eastern Europe and Caucasus.

Each stamp designs match major signature of each cities. Rock Pigeon shown the castle nearby Tašmajdan Park, Belgrade. There is one of the famous places to see pigeon in the world. Great Tit stamp illustrates panorama of Subotica in background, the building looks like local town hall. Subotica is a border city of Serbia with 10 thousands population. The stamp of House Sparrow also illustrates sight of Belgrade, but it is Kalemegdan and the shore Sava River. The last one, Black Redstart shown Lazaric Church of Kruševac.

This pair of beautiful first day covers also have attractive illustrations Common Dove and Rock Pigeon separately, thanks Lajsák of his great help who sent me the covers from Kanjiza.

Joint issue - Bulgaria and Serbia

22d : Eurasian Woodcock (丘鷸) ; 46d : Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush (白背磯鶇)
Serbia (2009)
4th September, 2009. Kanjiza

There have two joint issues I want to collect this year, one is Iran-Portugal joint issue and another one is Bulgaria-Serbia joint issue. Actually these four species may duplicate in my collection, but they seem interesting and the covers of these countries I didn't own before. Here is a pair of Bulgaria-Serbia covers sent from these two countries, the Serbia one is not easy to collect wheile two covers have been lost in journey.

In here I don't want to repeat introduce these two species - Eurasian Woodcock and Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush, they shown before in Belgium and Swiss issues. However, different than Swiss one, the Rock-Thrush in this issue illustrated as blue colour, as the birds may change their feather to blue in spring and back to white in winter.

The stamps, except two birds, illustration of backgrounds are vary in these two issues, it caused Bulgaria one looks oddly. Bulgaria also issued a same illustration pre-paid envelope for the series, left-side of envelope illustrated someone hunting a Marsh Harrier (白腹鷂) in rural area. Thanks Iajcsak from Majdan and Ivan from Sofia of their nice covers.

0,60l : Eurasian Woodcock (丘鷸) ; 1,00l : Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush (白背磯鶇)
Bulgaria (2009)
28th May, 2009. Sofia