COVER N. 781 - TURKEY

Postmark: Karşıyaka PTT Müdürlüğü Izmir 12.10.2026

Posted on the12th October;  Received on the 26th October 2026

_________________________________________________________________________________

Turkey is quite underrepresented in my blog, so I felt very happy to receive this cover, the more so since I love woodpeckers....Çok teşekkür ederim, Nail!

Toc-toc-toc-toc-toc-toc..... toc-toc-toc-toc-toc-toc..... toc-toc-toc-toc-toc-toc..... 

I do remeber the first time ever I heard a woodpecker doing its thing.... well, if not the first time ever, at least the first time the unmistakable noise made me stop and look.

At first I couldn't see it...

Another machine gun burst.... Toc-toc-toc-toc-toc-toc.....

What the heck?... 

toc-toc-toc-toc-toc-toc.......

Oh... Blimey!... is that... a woodpecker?... On the power line pole...?

It so happened I was on a early morning walk with my camera, but I needed to grab a longer lens from the backpack... I slowly took the backpack off, opened it, grabbed the lens and replaced the one in the camera. Just as I was lifting my head the  impromptu xylophone sounded again, but it was the last phrase in the score and the musician flew away in the glory of its black and white coat with a red sash over the belly.

Quite a view and it did made my day. 

It seems that the great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) I saw that day did fly quite a distance, since I could now find it on Nail's cover, on the right side of the frame of the single 35 Lira stamp souvenir sheet, issued on 02JUN2025 to celebrate World Environment Day 2025, highlighting "İğneada Longoz Ormanları Milli Parkı (İğneada Floodplain Forests National Park), established in 2007 and located within Kırklareli Province in Marmara region at East Thrace, the European part of Turkey" (in Wikipedia).

The stamp itself is illustrated with a Black Woodpecker (Dryocopus martius) family, while on the left side of the frame another of its relatives, an European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) is also clinging to a trunk.

- The second 35 lira stamp on the cover is part of a set of  four same face value stamps issued on 15AUG2025, honouring the memory of  Münir Özkul (1925-2018) on the year of the centenary of his birth. 

Münir Özkul was a theatre and cinema actor who  was awarded the title of "State Artist of Turkey" in 1998.

- The last stamp on the cover was issued on 30DEC1992 as part of a set of 5 (2x T; 3 x M) dedicated to Turkish cultural celebrities.

It celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Muhsin Ertugrul (1892-1979), a Turkish actor and director.

As a matter of curiosity, Muhsin Ertugrul (1892-1979) was the diretor of the film that made Münir Özkul  famous: Fareler ve İnsanlar, a production of John Steinbeck's adorable classic "Of Mice and Men".

The postmark hails from Izmir, on the Aegean coast of Turkey.