Gulo gulo

The theme this week for Sunday Stamps is mammals and Viridian has used a lovely stamp from China of elephants. I have seen lots of elephants - not Asian ones of course but African ones, because I live in Africa. But the stamps I have chosen are of an animal I will probably never see in real life because it is so rare and found only in the far North, the mysterious cold North. This animal is the Wolverine. It's Latin binomial is Gulo gulo which translates to glutton. The wolverine is a fierce killer, a poacher of the prey of others and a scavenger of carrion who likes to cache it's food under the snow and return later - hence it's reputation as a big eater. Anna wrote on her postcard that they are called the 'demon of the taiga'.

These two stamps come from a set of 4 released by Russia in 2004. This is what the whole set looks like:

Check out Sunday Stamps to see more. Joy has a fabulous selection of South African stamps, Danut has bears from Vietnam and there is a lot more.

Splendeurs de Bretagne

Splendors of Brittany
Back in Brittany again and I do not have much time except to say that this adorable bird is a Puffin. There are only 3 species of Puffin in the world whereas there are 17 species of Penguins! This is an Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica), the other two species live in the Pacific Ocean.

In spring orange plates grow over the bill which are then shed later, after the breeding season. Puffins are monogamous and both incubate the one egg and care for the chick that they hatch out.

First Bobcat

My very first Bobcat has arrived from the USA thanks to Erin and the Choose a Country RR. Bobcats are from the genus Lynx and live in North America. Apparently there are a number of subspecies ranging geographically from the south of Canada to the north of Mexico. All Lynx have short tails, none live in Africa. :( I am exceedingly pleased to have received this very cute cat ^_~

A Little Bear from Belarus

This gorgeous little Brown Bear cub arrived from coralfish in Belarus for the Baby Animals RR Group #178. Brown Bears are found over much of Northern Europe and Asia as well as in North America. The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are sup-species. Did you know there are no bears found in Africa. How sad.

There are 18 postcards in this series of Fauna of Belarus and so far I have 2!

A Polish Hare

A Hare photographed by Jan Walencik, a photographer and nature documentary maker. I have quite a few postcards with his photography and they are wonderful. I love this one!

Lovely stamps featuring Red Deer and a Wildcat.

A Snowy Wolf

This is a magnificent shot of a Gray Wolf, somewhat marred by some Ukrainian postal worker putting the canceller on the front of the card (right in the middle of the wolf's forehead) rather than on the back.

Needless to say the Ukrainian Postal Service was not my favourite in the world for a day.

Reindeer Sledding

I cannot even begin to express how much I love this card. It is one of my favourites of all. When I was small one of my favourite fairy tales was the 'The Snow Queen' by Hans Christian Andersen and the part I loved the best was when Gerda travels to Lapland with a Reindeer as her companion. I have loved Reindeer and the North ever since then.

This was sent to me by Anna from Russia via the Animals RR.

Anna is always thoughtful in her choice of stamps. These feature Reindeer, a Snow Leopard and a Bear!

A Family of Wild Boar

This adorable family of little boars arrived from Lotty in Belgium via the Native Animal RR. Their stripes make me very happy ^_^

Moose in Love

I don't know why but the species Alces alces is called Moose in America and Eurasian elk in Europe. They do look odd but also gentle and mild manned but in fact they are neither of those things. In his book 'Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod' the author Gary Paulsen describes a scene where a moose comes out of nowhere and kills the lead dog of the sled team in front of him. Horrifying!

This postcard was sent to me by Paula who lives in The Netherlands but went to Sweden on holiday ^_^

Brown Bear

This whole week the only piece of post I received was this lovely card from Finland of a Brown Bear. It was send via sendsomething.net by Iina A.

Thank-you ^_^ I will send something soon ^_^

The postcard that I sent to Poland arrived. You can see Spellbound's post here.