Saturday, July 16, 2011

Sunday Stamps #27

Our theme today is birds.  I have a stamp from the country of Portugal.

This is a pretty bird with a sad story behind it. This is the Azores bullfinch.  Its species name is Pyrrhula murina, and it is endemic (meaning it is found only there) to the islands of the Azores, a small archepelago of islands in the North Atlantic that belong to Portugal.

Not only that, it is endemic to one island only, São Miguel  Island. 

Not only that, it is found only in the forests of the mountains in the eastern part of the island.

It likes the native laurel forests, and it is threatened by deforestation and the growth of non-native species.

In 2003, it was estimated that there were only 400 individuals left.  However in 2008 it was estimated that there were 775 individuals left, so there is some hope.  There is an organization called Centropriolo, dedicated to preserving this laurel forest ecosystem, and the priolo.
Some of my research was also done on Wikipedia.

Edited to add: Theme next week: Anything you wish.

    

6 comments:

Postcardy said...

That is a pretty bird and a pretty stamp. Hopefully the number of birds will increase.

jenny said...

I hope that their attempt to save this kind of bird is successful.

Maria said...

I also wish that efforts to save the bird is successful. It would be really sad if our future generations can only see them in pictures.

I don't have a bird stamp on hand but your post gave me an idea on what to share. I hope there's a stamp that was issued by the PhilPost about this particular bird that I want to write about...

Dorincard said...

Very nice Portuguese/Azores stamp!
I hope to have a bird blogpost, too, today. :)
With an MC with such a stamp!!!

As a zazzle stamp, somebody bought my woodpecker design - a sheet of 20.
I don't have it, but somebody has all the 20 copies in the world, in existence so far. :)

dakotaboo said...

Lovely stamp, and great theme this week and one very close to my heart.

Sheila @ A Postcard a Day said...

It's a beautiful bird. I hope the numbers continue to improve.

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