SAPOA

Joint issue SAPOA - from left to right :

K1.100 : Peregrine Falcon (擬游隼) ; K1.700, K500 : African Fish Eagle (吼海鵰)
K2.200 : Blue Crane (藍鶴) ; K750 : Western Cattle Egret (黃頭鷺)
K1.500 : Bar-tailed Trogon (斑尾咬鵑) ; K1.800 : Violet-crested Turaco (紫冠蕉鵑)
Zambia (2004)
Definitive - from top to bottom :
B : African Sacred Ibis (埃及聖鷺) ; C : Purple Swamphen (紫水雞)
Zambia (2001)
9th June, 2010. Lusaka Airport
10th June, 2010. Lusaka

Thanks to Yoram again, he sent me nice bird covers from Zambia and Zimbabwe when he spent a safari trip during mid-June, they are wonderful and amazing. This time, is the first SAPOA (Southern Africa Postal Operators Association) joint issue released on 2004, featuring the 7 membership's national birds, they are Peregrine Falcon of Angola ; African Fish Eagle of Namibia and Zimbabwe ; Blue Crane of South Africa ; Western Cattle Egret of Botswana and Zambia and last one, Violet-crested Turaco of Swaziland. However some birds has already shown here as below :

• Peregrine Falcon - Canada, Italy, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates ;
• African Fish Eagle - Kenya ;
• Blue Crane - South Africa ;
• Violet-crested Turaco - South Africa.

Actually, those birds are quite common to be found in southern Africa, or say some birds are endemic to some areas or countries.

As the postage rate, two more bird definitive stamps be used on the mail, these two old stamps (still selling in there and no surprising) issued on 2001 are seem more attractive than the SAPOA stamps ! African Sacred Ibis and Purple Swamphen are common in sub-Sahara area, and also the swamphen to be found in Indian Peninsula, South-east Asia to eastern part of Australia and Oceania islands.

Saddle-bill Stork and Black-cheeked Lovebird

FrontK200 and K900 : Saddle-billed Stork (鞍嘴鸛)
K300 and K500 : Black-cheeked Lovebird (黑頰情侶鸚鵡)
Zambia (1996)
30th March, 2010. Kansenshi, Nodla
30th March, 2010. Nodla
31st March, 2010. Lusaka

Do you remember a cover from Malawi features a WWF stamp set of Nyasa Lovebird (尼亞情侶鸚鵡) ? It was a great and lovely stamp set in WWF series. Until now, only two stamp sets in WWF series are featuring species in Agapornis (情侶鸚鵡) genus, Malawi one is the second and the first one issued by Zambia on 1996 which shown as above. Above illustrated cover affixed whole set of stamps sent from Nodla, so you can find all two species in the stamp set. As well as last two Zambian mails, this cover be regraded by Mr. Ramsey, many thanks for his great help.

Saddle-billed Stork is a great stork widely to be found in sub-Saharan area, from Sudan to South Africa. Height 1,5m and the wings can be width 2,7m, except head, neck, back and tail in black colour ; black legs with pink knees, and huge reddish with black bar bill, it almost in white. The bird mostly lives in tropical marshes and wetlands, nesting in branch with deep and wide nest. Black-cheeked Lovebird is mainly in green with blackish head and reddish bill, it is endemic to Victoria Waterfall area of Zambia, as it habits in relatively small range area caused the bird easy be effected by habitat change, now it listed as vulnerable in ICUN list. Same as most lovebirds, it also is a popular pet over the world, in wild area it mostly inhabits woodland.

Above cover was sent from Kansenshi, where is a town in south-west of Nodla. Below is the back side of above envelope demonstrated how the mail processing in Zambia. And also a maxicard features Black-cheeked Lovebird, thanks Yoram of London, who had exciting safari trip on late-May.

Back
MaxicardBlack-cheeked Lovebird (黑頰情侶鸚鵡)
Zambia (1996)
31st May, 2010. Nodla

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.

Birds of the tropics (1)

500K : Cockatiel (雞尾鸚鵡) ; 600K : Amazonian Umbrellabird (亞馬遜傘鳥)
Zambia (2000)
23rd September, 2009. Ndola
24th September, 2009. Lusaka

Actually, many issues produced by IPGS are quite non-collectable, this largest world philatelic agency helps many countries to produce their stamps and it has right to control the country what themes to be issue. As a result, many themes are not related to issue countries or total quantity of stamps and sheets are not reasonably in each issue. In here there have been shown two examples the Gambia and Grenada, now showing third country Zambia. Above two stamps are come from Birds of the tropics issued on 2000, this issue includes 5 single stamps, 3 sheetlets and 2 souvenir sheets, total 31 individual stamps illustrate different birds over the world, but none of them to be found in Zambia ! I only collected those single stamps and will be shown them in two threads in here.

Cockatiel is endemic to Australia, which is one of popular pet in the world. Cockatiel is one of smallest parrot in Psittacidae (鸚鵡科), wild birds mostly live in wetlands and frutex jungles. Origin type is in grey coloured body, orange-yellowed crest with yellowish or white coloured face of male birds, and female birds in light greyed colour. Both sexes feature a round orange area on both ear areas called cheek patches. Crest will be risen up when it feels frighted or excitation.

Unfortunately, only Zambia issued cockatiel stamp and no other replacement. Australia had issued postal stationary illustrate cockatiel but not confirm when did it issue.

Males of Amazonian Umbrellabird is the largest bird of Cotingidae (傘鳥科) in South America, length measured up to estimate 50cm. There have two main communities of its inhabit area, one located in woodland forests and branches near Amazon Basin, another in the eastern Andes. Same as other umbrellabird it overlooks black with a conspicuous umbrella shaped crest, and an inflatable wattle on the neck, which serves to amplify their loud, booming calls.