Europa National Birds Stamps 2019
The subject for 2019’s Europa stamps is National Birds. Spain has a bearded vulture on its 2019 six-stamp Premium Sheet.
The bird is adapted to live in the harsh high landscape of the Pyrenean mountain range from Navarre to Catalonia.
Its anatomy is unmistakable. This huge bird can reach wingspans of up to 2.80 metres. Its Spanish name, “quebrantahuesos” (bone-breaker) comes from its way of feeding. Among other things it feeds on bones which it drops from a height onto rocks to crack them into smaller pieces. It does this in areas known in Spanish as “rompederos”.
According to calculations made by an international team of scientists there are 307 million lakes in the world. That number includes all natural lakes, but not human-made lakes such as reservoirs formed by dams. Most lakes on earth are small, with nine out of ten lakes covering less than one hectare (2.5 acres).
The tractor was a very important invention for the development of agricultural production throughout the world and tractors on postage stamps can be an interesting topic for the stamp collector. Maybe some of the following shown here will be of interest also.
In the late 1970s a fascinating series of articles written by Mr. K. Kouwenberg about the history of Stamp Collecting, appeared in the Dutch magazine Philatelie. This series has been the source of inspiration for PostBeeld owner Rob Smit to rewrite the history of stamp collecting in instalments. This is Part 32 – Collectors’ Associations.
This article appears courtesy of Cees Janssen, a confessed Anglophile and one of the main contributors for PostBeeld’s Dutch-language “Postzegelblog”:
Coffee is second only to oil as the most-traded commodity in the world.
Was the first Mr. Bean actually a ninth-century Ethiopian goatherd Named Kaldi? There is a fabled story that he discovered coffee when he noticed how excited his goats became after eating the beans from a coffee plant. It is now estimated that about two billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide each day!
The beauty of New Zealand is undisputed by those fortunate enough to have visited the country. Indeed, in 2010 NZ Post issued a lovely 25-value mini-sheet depicting some of the highlights to be seen on the country’s North and South Islands. The sheet is entitled “A Slice of Heaven”.