COVER N. 413 - ABKHAZSIA

Postmark: ? 16.012024

Posted on the 16 January; Received on the 28th February 2024

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Abkhazia. Another hotspot issued out of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which, like South Ossetia, remains an unsettled question between Russia and Georgia, much as Transnistria does between Russia and Moldova.

The Republic of Abkhazia is only recognised by Russia and less than a handful of  its usual allies, while most of the world's flags consider Abkhazia to be a Georgian territory under Russian occupation.

Today’s news on TV brought echoes ever growing tension in Transnistria, at a time when things in Ukraine seem to be getting tougher and tighter for the defendants, especially affected by the internal dispute in the US and Europe's lack of industrial capacity....

The fuse seems to be slowly burning everywhere.... History does not repeat itself, some say, but stupidity is inherent to humans it seems...

A huge thanks to The Phantom, who managed to get me this very interesting addition to my collection. Danke sehr, Alex!

The stamp on this cover is a statement by itself...it was issued on 29SEP2018 as part of a two stamp set (15 and 50  Russian Ruble) celebrating 25 years of Abkhazia - Transnistria friendship, illustrated by the flags of the two separatist regions...

I cannot decipher the neat postmark, but confronting it to the Wikipedia article  I can affirm that the first part of the upper legend reads Republic of Abkhazia.

On the left there is a small stamp saying Abkhazian Post - Postage paid.

COVER N. 412 - ICELAND

Postmark: Kopavogur Islandspóstur 12.02.2024

Posted on the 12th December 2023; Received on the 22nd February 2024

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Brrrrrr.... should be cold out there, even though fire seems to burn perpetually not far from the surface, as so many recent eruptions of several  of Iceland's many volcanoes have proven lately.

Iceland, the photographer's paradise, the place where you can put a foot on the americas and another on the old continent, while chewing on some rotten dried shark piece of meat. For all these reasons and many other I'd love to visit one day,

Until then I can always enjoy the beautiful cover The flying Dutchman made sure I'd get, so as not to leave Iceland unticked in my list of countries.  Hartelijk dank, Eric!

- Johannes S. Kjarval (1885 - 1972) was an Icelandic modernist painter whose works defy classification within any of the styles and currents for which modernism was known for, although these were fully assimilated by the artist, and synthesised into his own personal style.

His works can be divided at large into three thematic groups - portraits, landscapes and  fantasies - and it is to the later that the magnificent painting “Yearning for Flight”, illustrating the mythological story of “Leda and the Swan” can be attributed.

This is the painting that was chosen to illustrate the 100 Kronur stamp issued on the occasion of  Kjarval's birth centenary, on 15OCT1985. Of note is the fact that the stamp painting was also used to illustrate a 2000 Kronur banknote issued in 1986.

- The theme for CEPT/EUROPA stamps in 1992 was "Voyages of Discovery in America". 

This is a theme that is still open to controversy as there are two main contenders to the title of first European on American soil: Christopher Columbus, on his voyage of 1942 and Leif Erikson, in 1000.

 

Iceland post chose to highlight both epic journeys on its issue, which began to circulate on 06APR1992, illustrating two 55 kronur stamps with a depiction of Erikson's drakkar on one stamp and Columbus Santa Maria carrack on the other. The individual stamps were also issued integrated into a souvenir sheet, this time without the white frame around them. The full issue (stamps and sheet) can be seen on the cover.

- The 10th anniversary of Reykjavik’s water works was also the occasion for Pósturinn to issue on 07MAY209 the 10 Kronur stamp, which can be seen on the lower left corner of the envelope.

Judging from the postmark the cover was mailed from Kopavogur, Icewland's second most populous city.

COVER N. 411 -  SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS

Postmark: Post Office Charlestown, Nevis, W.I. 26.12.2023

Posted on the 26th December 2023; Received on the 21st February 2024

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My second cover from Nevis, and this one made the long journey to my letterbox in much better shape than the previous one. 

Pity I cannot compare the travel times of both covers, since the postmark on the first one was illegible in what concerns the date, but I do think that this one was faster than the previous, even if it took a solid two months to get here.

Anyway, my heartfelt thanks to The Phantom for again allowing me to add such an interesting item to my collection. Danke Sehr, Alex!

Dinosaurs... plenty of them: six individual stamps, plus two minisheets containing six same value stamps each and two single stamp souvenir sheets. that was the (out)size of the "Pre-historic animals" Nevis issue that saw the light of day on 22FEB1999, on the occasion of the World Stamp Expo, which took place in Melbourne, Australia in March of the same year.

Alex used two of the six 1.20 Eastern Caribbean Dollars stamps from one of the minisheets on this cover, depicting an Hadrosaurus foulkii (left) and a Tuojiangosaurus multispinus (right).

the Postmark indicates that the letter was mailed from the city of Charlestown, Nevis most important urban area.

 COVER N. 410 -  RWANDA

Postmark: Kigaly Rwanda 02.02.2024

Posted on the 2nd February; Received on the 21st February 2024

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As I said in the previous entry, this has been a great week in what concerns additions to the countries list, here on the blog.

This time, another African country gets represented, thanks to the generosity and care of Roland, who is also one of those kind souls that always try to surprise me with something out of the ordinary. I can't say how much I love and appreciate to open my letterbox and seeing there's something from Roland inside, for a great many times, this means another tick in the "not to be expected" list. Un très grand merci, Roland, pour tous les plis fantastiques qui m'ont été parvenus d'origines vraiment inhabituels!

Rwanda... echoes of one of the most horrendous genocide in later years, when,  hundreds of thousands of  Tutsi  some sources say in excess of half a million, were systematically murdered by their fellow Hutu countrymen 1994, during a 100 day period, in the course of a civil war between the two ethnic groups that had began in 1990, while the world stood by watching, mostly...

Today Rwanda is at peace, but ruled  quite autocratically as a rapid consultation to the Human Rights Watch site allows us to confirm. The scars of the hell people went through 25 years ago must also be hard to totally heal, although efforts have been made to promote reconciliation, these having included an interesting form of traditional community courts, called Gacaca, through which local elected judges trialled suspects of crimes not including the planning of genocide. According to a report from the UN, dated of March 2012,  these had by then trialled 1.2 million cases since 2005, having decidedly contributed to the promotion of reconciliation through the opportunity they represented to offenders to be again reintegrated into the community.

Peace is a key factor for development, and the latest available figures for  GDP growth in Rwanda indicate a 8.2% increase in 2022, following a 10.9 jump in the previous year, tourism being probably the main  driver of this growth. It should also be noted that Gorilla watching is the most important factor in tourism growth, what says a lot regarding the importance of peace, conservationism and sustainability.

Stamps, Left to right:

- The two stamps on the left side of the envelope are part of a five stamp set (34; 300; 500; 600; 1000 Rwandan Francs) issued on 15NOV2010, dedicated to Rwandan arts and culture. Basket weaving and traditional dancing were the themes chosen to illustrate them.

- I've already mentioned the importance that the Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) has for tourism catchment for Rwanda, so it comes as no surprise that they should equally be featured on a set of four stamps (30; 40; 2000; 5000 RWF), also issued on 15NOV2010.

It seems that 1989 was declared as  the Year of Rural Organization in Rwanda, this having led to Rwanda's Postal Administration issuing a set of four stamps (10; 70; 90; 200 RWF) dedicated to the theme, the 90 Franc stamp having been used on this cover.

- Norman Rockwell (1894 - 1978) is a well known American painter and illustrator, famous for his illustrations of the everyday life of common people.

On 11MAY1981, the Rwanda Postal services issued an eight stamp set ( 20; 30; 50 cents; 1; 8; 20; 50; 70 RWF) reproducing several of the artist's illustrations.  "The clown" is the title of that on the stamp on  the cover which, like many of Rockwell's works, was used on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, in this particular case on the cover of the 26 May,1923 issue.

The Postmark indicates that the cover was mailed from the capital, Kigali.

COVER N. 409 -  SENEGAL

Postmark: Passy La Poste Senegal 12.02.2024

Posted on the 12th February; Received on the 20th February 2024

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Lately, my blog has been a bit on the quieter side,  in what concerns adding new entries to the list of countries, postal administrations and services. Well, this week has proved fantastic in this respect and I have quite a number of new entries to register, blame it on the usual suspects....

I can't even say how grateful I am to all those friends who keep doing their best to ensure that my list keeps getting bigger and bigger. I said it before, they are truly appreciated contributors to this blog, and these lines are as theirs as mine, conceptually, of course, since the opinions I sometimes express are but mine and mine alone.

When I started this blog I was naively counting on the exposure that the internet now allows us, so that someone, somewhere, who might share an interest in the hobby would contact and we'd be able to swap a cover or two. In fact, this was the way I started, as what I did was exactly to search the internet for cover collecting blogs and email their authors, enquiring if they would want to swap covers.

Still, my expectations proved too high. That is not to say that I haven't been contacted by a few fellow collectors wanting to swap covers, but these were quite few and far between. The fundamental step was really joining the London Cover Circuit Club and be part of the universe of like-minded blokes and blokesses who enjoy receiving traditional mail in gorgeous envelopes embellished with no less beautiful stamps, who are members of the LCCC.

This simple action exponentially increased my cover traffic and, what’s more, exposed this unpretentious blog to the immense generosity of some friends who, as I said above, have been doing their best to ensure its posts remain as diverse and inclusive as possible.

To all of them; to all of you: Muito Obrigado!

And so a new country joins the list: Senegal, right in front of the archipelago where I spent my  first years of existence... curiously enough, Senegal as a Republic and myself are the same age; we both were born in 1960, on very similar latitudes,..

Hartelijk dank, Eric!

- I love mangoes. they are quite common nowadays in fruit shops and supermarkets, but that was not so when I was a child back in the seventies of last century, here in my country. At that time, there was not that many people who lived in mainland Portugal who knew what a mango was, let alone how it tasted... myself included, I should add, since even if I had heard my mother and father mentioning how sweet and tasty they were, I had no recollection of them. But that would finally come to an end when somewhere around 76-80, a friend of mine, who had Cape Verdean  relatives, gave me one of the little mangoes that grow in the archipelago, so that I could finally taste it.

Funny how a stamp can trigger such a recollection.... 

The 100 stamp illustrated with the image of a mango and a mango tree, is part of a four stamp set  (90; 100; 125; 145 CFA Francs) issued on 30MAY1991, dedicated to local fruits trees and their fruits.

- Diana Spencer, Diana of Wales, Lady Di... a fairy tale gone sour, a tragic life with an even more tragic ending,.. sad...  no need to talk about it... everyone knows the story... 

Why would a Francophile and Francophone country like Senegal, issue on 16JAN1998, no less than 4 one stamp souvenir sheets plus two 9 stamp souvenir sheets, for a total of 22 stamps dedicated to Diana Princess of Wales is something that transcends reason in my humble opinion, but that was the case, and the two  200 CFA Franc stamps on the cover are part of one of those sheets.

The nice bi-colour postmark hails from Passy, some 150 km as the bird flies from Dakar, the country's capital.

POSTCARD N.132 - FRANCE

Postcard sent on the 12th February; received on the 19th February 2024

Postcard image: "Grande Hermine" reproduction of a stamp from the 2008 set "Military Ships".
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La Grand Hermine, the ship used by French navigator and explorer Jacques Cartier (1491 - 1557) to sail up the St. Lawrence river in the land he would name Canada, and which is thought to be represented in the flag of the remaining French territory in the region: the St. Pierre and Miquelon archipelago.

France's famous ships from the  pre-steamship days were the subject of a souvenir sheet comprising 6 0,55€ stamps, issued by La Poste on 20JUN2008. La Grand Hermine was featured on one of these stamps and the very nice prepaid card I received from Eric reproduces this particular stamp.

The pre-printed stamp on the back of the postcard also replicates a previously issued stamp. This time a charity stamp, issued on 11MAR1946, with a face value of 2 + 3 Francs, illustrated with a military ship, and carrying the legend "Ouevres de la Marine" (Navy Works), which I presume indicates the entity benefitting from the  3F surcharge revenues.

As usual with French mail further to the nice manual postmark, the stamp is  also obliterated with a redundant machine applied cancellation.

Un grand Merci, Eric, pour cette jolie carte!

POSTCARD N.131 - CZECH REPUBLIC

Postcard sent on the 13th February; received on the 16th February 2024

Postcard image: Šumava National Park; Polednik Tower.
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Šumava National Park... hiking in the mountains and getting the opportunity to climb to an even higher vantage point than that already offered by the terrain to enjoy the views... what's not to like.....it was great to hear from a friend again and I'll keep the card as reference for the future.... maybe one day I'll be able to climb to that tower..... Bardzo dziękuję, Michal!

Polednik tower used to be a lookout post for an air defence base back in the days of the Warsaw pact and of Czechoslovakia. Today, after having been totally refurbished and reconverted, it serves a much nicer purpose with its 37 metres of height serving as a belvedere platform for visitors on a day out in the Šumava National Park.

Šumava National Park was established in 1963 as a protected landscape area and has acquired National Park Status in 1991, after having been declared by the UNESCO a Biosphere reserve, in 1990.

The Park occupies an area of 680.64 km2, located along the border with Germany and Austria, in the South of the Czech Republic and within its borders several uncommon or even rare fauna and flora species thrive, like the marsh orchid or the black stork, to name but two.

Michal sent the postcard from the town of Ceske Budejovice; judging from the postmark used to cancel the "Pampeliška" (Dandelion) Tariff E definitive, issued on 23MAY2019, part of the definitive series started in 2002, dedicated to the beauty of flowers.

Of note is also the nice Cachet of the Polednik tower included in the card, which itself  already contained a printed Sumava National Park cachet.

COVER N. 408-  JAPAN

Postmark: First day of Issue 07.02.2024

Posted on the 7th February; Received on the 15th February 2024

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It has been a while since I last received mail from the land of the rising sun, so ありがとう a lot, Hisao.

Spring is indeed coming and just like Japan Post, I think this is one of the great occasions worthy of celebration every year. Spring, the beginning of a new cycle, the rebirth of nature, of colours, of days, of light... Spring, the gentlest and kindest of all seasons... and  I absolutely adore it! 

Japan Post chose to honour Spring with two sets of 5 stamps each, both issued on 07FEB2024.

The stamps on one of the sets  have a face value of  63 Yen, while the stamps comprised in the other set (two of which can be seen on this cover) have a face value of 84 Yen. 

As befits the event being celebrated , the arrival of Spring, the stamps are illustrated with the season's most obvious symbol: flowers, and quite fittingly,  with flowers that occur in Japan.

Thus, the stamp on the right is dedicated to the Flaccid anemone (Anemonastrum flaccidum), designated Nirinsou in Japanese, a member of the Ranunculaceae family, while that on the left depicts the Primrose (Primula vulgaris), a member of the Primulaceae family.

The very neat First day of Issue Postmark is illustrated with some of the plants contained in both sets of stamps and the two first characters on the base legend mean Tokyo (that's how far I could go ...) 😀

The regular day mark, on the left lower corner of the envelope, confirms Tokyo as the origin of the letter.

COVER N. 407-  ALBANIA

Postmark: Zyra Postare 9 Tiranë 02.02.2024

Posted on the 2nd February; Received on the 8th February 2024

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The relentless Phantom has gone to the Balkans this time....to the land of the many bunkers, on an impossible mission, (almost... but he, the Ghost who Walks, the Phantom, will always prevail....) and I have proof of it....Danke Sehr, Alex!

Alex used a one stamp souvenir sheet on this cover that is a bit intriguing in nature.

In fact it is part of an issue which also included two individual stamps, which I believe were meant to be the Albanian CEPT/EUROPA issue for 2005, as attested by the CEPT logo on the sheet frame.

And this is where it all gets a bit confusing:

- the theme for the 2005 common issue was "Gastronomy", which the stamp cannot relate to at all;

- the legend on the stamp says it commemorates the 50t anniversary of the first EUROPA issue - 1956-2006, the stamp having been issued in 2005;

- The stamp is illustrated with a reproduction of George Seurat's magnificent "la Voltigeuse", while the frame of the stamp is dominated by the figure of a clown. This would be perfect for the 2002 common issue, which was themed on "The circus".

Anyway, be it as it may, the cover makes a very nice addition to my collection and I couldn't be more thankful to Alex.

The Postmark hails from the capital, Tirana, from Post Office n 9, which Alex tells me was the only one he could find  willing to post the 300 covers + the Phantom had under his belt...

COVER N. 406 -  SOUTH AFRICA

Postmark: N/A

Posted on ?; Received on the 1st February 2024

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Another mystery.....

Thank you, whoever it was who sent me this cover from the country where the two oceans come together, all for Good Hope....

I have a suspicion, in fact I have two suspicions, but I'll refrain from outing them here, for they can be absolutely wrong....

And so I'll go directly to the stamps, which fall under my theme of choice: all things aviation.

South Africa Post Office issued a minisheet on 28APR2021 with 10 "Standard Postage" stamps, celebrating the centenary of the South African Air Force, which was established on the 1st February 1920, equipped with aircraft donated by the United Kingdom from the vast surplus inventory issued out of the First World War.

The stamps are pretty informative in that they contain a small legend indicating the period of usage of the aircraft depicted on each stamp, which are also well identified.

On the cover we have 5 of the 10 stamps and, from left to right, top to bottom, we have:

 - Hawker Hurricane IIB, used by the SAAF for the duration of the 2nd World War, between 1939 and 1945.

- Mirage IIICZ, operated between 1963 and 1990,  and from 1966  in the context of what become known as the Border war or the Namibia independence war, a conflict which involved Namibia, Angola, Zambia and South Africa.

De Haviland DH9 - one of the workhorses of  many an air force after the end of WW1, the DH.9 light bomber was a development of the DH4, itself one of the most mass produced aircraft of the first world conflict with over 6,250 aircraft of the type having been produced.

C-130B Hercules, still in service with the SAAF, with whom it began to operate in 1963.

Atlas Oryx - a South African development of the  Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma, which became operational with the SAAF in 1986 band is still in the current inventory.

POSTCARD N.131 - GAMBIA

Postcard sent on the 20th January 2024; received on the 2nd February 2024

Postcard image: Reproduction of a Portuguese stamp with Portuguese Explorer Alexandre Serpa PInto 
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The Portuguese  were the first westerners to try to set up a colony on the margins of the Gambia river, in the 15th century,  during the days of Henry the Navigator, the main instigator of  the epic Portuguese maritime expansion.

As such, to see a Portuguese explorer, although from the 19th century, on a postcard mailed form The Gambia, does not seem to be totally out of place, although I concede that the connection isn't very evident 😀.

All this notwithstanding, I couldn't be more happy to be able to add this particular maxicard to my collection, something which I found out was only possible due to the generous help of an international consortium for which I Have again to thank Eric and Wilhelm. Many thanks to both of them!

Gambia is the smallest country of Continental Africa, occupying an 11,300 square kilometres strip along both sides of the river from where it gets its name.

Although small in size, the region saw many of its inhabitants falling prey to the infamous slave trade which provided the Americas the workforce needed for the  sugar and cotton plantations, some 3 million persons having been forcibly  captured and sent away to a strange land to work under brutal conditions, in the course of a period of almost 300 years.

Today, Gambia's economy rests heavily in agriculture,  cotton and peanuts being the main crops, but fishing and tourism are also two important contributors to the nation's GDP formation.

The British, to whom trade rights in the region were sold by the Portuguese in the 16th century,   were the colonial power from whom Gambia got its independence in 1965.

Stamps,  Left to Right:

The Milon's Swallowtail (Graphium milon) graces the 5 Dalasi stamp, of whih a pair can be seen on the card. It was issued on 14JAN2003, as part of a 4 stamp  set dedicated to butterflies

The Milon's Swallowtail (Graphium milon) is a member of the Papilionidae family and is endemic to the Sunda Islands in tha Malay archipelago.

The 7 Dalasi stamp with a detail from Rembrandt's "The anatomy lesson" is part of a minisheet celebrating the 200 years of the Rijksmuseum, issued on 15JAN2001.

The souvenir sheet with an 18 Dalasi stamp featuring a Great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) was issued on 28OCT1991 as part of an issue dedicated to fish wich included another one stamp souvenir sheet and 10 individual stamps

The 1 Dalasi break-van stamp is part of a 9 x 1D stamp minisheet issued on 12SEP1991, entitled "The world of caboose". The full issue included another two 9 stamp minisheets plus two 1 stamp souvenir sheets, in the typical fashion of the agency producing these stamps for the country....

The Viking longboat 15 Dalasi stamp is part of an issue dedicated to ships, dated of 15OCT1998, comprising four individual stamps, two minisheets of 9 stamps each and two one stamp souvenir sheets. 

The postmark indicates that the card was mailed from Bakau, a city on the outskirts of the country's capital Banjul, on the atlantic coast.

POSTCARD N.130 - UKRAINE

Postcard sent on the 28th December 2023; received on the 30th January 2024

Postcard image: Antonov AN-225 MRIYA - City of Heroes. Hostomel
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The largest cargo aircraft in the world, originally conceived to  piggiback carry the Buran space shuttle in the 80s of last century and then reconverted as a cargo aircraft capable of transporting gigantic packages, such as wind turbine blades or train locomotives.

Further to its enormous size - a 88,4 m wingspan and a total length of 84 m - its unique six engine configuration made it an absolutely unmistakable sight, wherever it went, always drawing on the attention of aircraft spotters all across the world, eager to include its picture in their collection. 

First flown in 1988, the one of a kind, mastodontic, Antonov AN-225 MRYA (Dream) would be destroyed by the Russian agressors in the early days of the invasion of Ukraine, in its usual base, the Antonov Airport, in Hostomel.

Ukraine authorities have vowed to rebuild the "Dream", but more pressing priorities are still ahead, so it is not clear when such an iconic aircraft will again cruse the skies

While visiting Ukraine just before the year's end, the Phantom sent me this postcard illustrated with quite eloquent before and after images of  the AN-225. Thanks a lot, Alex!

The 4 stamps on the back of the postcard are the single stamp issue of 26JUL2023 dedicated o the Ukrainian Security Services, illustrated with a soldier and what looks like a MI-17 helicopter.

The tariff T stamp on the face of the postcard is part of the definitive series with coats of arms of Ukrainian cities - Komarno, in this case - and was issued on 01DEC2021.

The postmark indicates that the postcard was sent from Nerubayske, Odessa.

COVER N. 405 -  FRANCE

Postmark: Nouvel An Chinois 1er Jour Année du Dragon 26.01.2024

Posted on the 26th January; Received on the 31st January 2024

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Happy new year for all the Dragons out there.....one cannot fail to notice the flaming (quite an adequate adjective, uh?) increase in postage that this FDC from France exhibits in the form of an 8% rise in the price of the humble paper rectangle....

BUT, 8 % is kid stuff, if we consider the obnoxious 14%  increase that the Portuguese operator - CTT - has put in force for the current year for European postage (13% rest of the world; 6.5% domestic)...Inflation in Portugal in 2023 was 4.3% so a full 10% jump above defies justification in my humble opinion, to say the least....

Anyway, guess I'll have to be a bit more parsimonious with my sendings.... this is but an hobby, not an end by itself, and a I will always treat it as such.

Anyway, please excuse my rant, but I really feel that I, as a consumer, have again been hit in the purse… and it does hurt a bit!

Merci Roland, en plus, le timbre est fort joli!

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a believer in astrology. On the other hand, Dragons, being powerful and almost unbeatable creatures, can be seen as  dangerously close in nature to despots and dictators, so, in our current state of affairs, let's hope the creature that is said to inspire the year does not inspire some  mortals more than they have already been unfortunately inspired......

La Poste issued two stamps on 26JAN2004 celebrating the Chinese New Year, dedicated to the Dragon. The 1,96 €, (up to 20g international) is seen on the cover, while the 1,29€ (up to 20g, domestic) is similar in design, although with an different dragon image over a blue background.

The First day Postmark was issued in the French capital, the beautiful city of Paris.

COVER N. 402/403/404 - SRI LANKA

Postmark: Headquarters P. O. Colombo Mail 23.01.24

Posted on the 23rd January; Received on the 1st February 2024

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I have said it before, Ravindra is fast becoming a very common name here on my blog, so many are the beautiful covers he has been sending me to my greatest pleasure. Bohomȧ  sthoothi, Ravindra!

This time, I was absolutely amazed to open my letterbox and find not one but three envelopes with the great bird Sri Lankan issue of 2021.  

Given that the covers are all intimately related I'll include  them all on a single post.

The issue, which began to circulate on 09OCT2021, is dedicated to Endemic Birds of Sri Lanka,  and it comprises 6 individual 25 Rupee stamps, which were also issued as one stamp souvenir sheets.

Ravindra made sure I had them all (in doubles 😀), and for that I am gratefully thankful, for this really makes for an interesting addition to my collection.

Ravindra kindly included in one of the covers a little booklet with the release notes, which luckily are bilingual and which I'll quote directly from to identify the birds depicted in the stamps, (which I presume is fair usage) using the image on its front page as reference. As so, left to right, top to bottom:

Sri Lankan Swallow - Cecnopis hyperythra

These birds live in the wet and dry zones of the lowlands, but they are not found in Jaffna or the surrounding islands. They can be seen on elevations up to 1,500 metres.

Sri Lanka Spoted Winged Thrush - Geokichla spiloptera

They can be found across the island in all geographical areas. They also live in elevations up to 2,000 metres. They can also be seen spread across the dry zone. The Sri Lanka Spot Winged Thrush prefers the forests in the low country wet zone.

Sri lanka Woodshrike - Tephrodornis affinis

The Woodshrike can be easily seen in the dry zone of the low country but can also be found in hilly areas of about 1200 metres. It is scarce to find the bird in the wet zone. They do not like heavy forests and can be seen on scrub as well as large trees.

Sri Lanka Crimson Fronted Barbet - Psilopogon rubricapillus

Can be seen in both the wet and dry zone. They can be seen in mountain areas, up to 1,300 metres of elevation. They prefer to stay in home gardens that have tall trees, and a striking feature is that they also live in urban surroundings.

Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill - Ocyceros gingalensis

These birds live in wet and dry zones of the low country. Although they live in both zones, they are more frequently found in the wet zone. They prefer to live in the riverine forests on the dry zone and forests with large trees in the wet zone.

Sri lanka Geater Flameback -  Chrysocolaptes striklandi

Can be found in all parts of the country but can be seen mainly in mountain areas in the wet zone.

As usual with Ravindra's covers, the Postmark indicates expedition through the PO Headquarters of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital.

COVER N. 401 - BRITISH OVERSEAS TERRITORIES - GIBRALTAR

Postmark: Royal Gibraltar Post Office Main office 19.01.24

Posted on the 19th January; Received on the 31st January 2024

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Almost one year ago I received a cover from Gibraltar sent by one of the usual suspects on this blog - Muito Obrigado, Eric! - which had a couple of stamps dedicated to the man that led the UK through a war that would shape the world for the next sixty or so years... and I put it that way because I feel that ever since the last turn of the century, world order has been reshaping itself, adapting, changing…

Where this will lead us it is still a mystery, but, once again, mouldy winds are blowing, hate as a weapon is on the rise, demagogy, populism... and I am not talking about one of those black and white news films produced by Rivus Pathé,  or any other agency, that would run before the day feature film at the local theatre, when I was a lad, but about of what I see every day on TV....

Lest we forget... a phrase coined by Kippling which  could be seen in memorials... poems... remembrance writings ever since the first world war...

have we forgotten?....

Yesterday, Mr Postman delivered this great Gibraltar cover, again courtesy of the Flying Dutchman, which contains the companion set to the above souvenir sheet  on cover 244, issued on 25MAR2020 in celebration of the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

The stamps, illustrated with period photographs highlighting all the main branches of the British military forces - Navy, Army and Air Force - also carry each a Letter which, when aligned in sequence, form the phrase V E DAY.

The stamps are cancelled with the postmark of the main Post Office at Gibraltar.