On the 9th of May, CTT presents a philatelic issue with several migratory passerine birds, links between European territories and countries as far away as Iceland, Norway, Russia and Portugal.
The birds represented in this issue are the zornal thrush, the ferfolha, the blue-throated robin, the red-breasted robin, the goldfinch and the land canary.
Portuguese territory is at the center of a privileged passageway for many species of migratory birds. The location at one of the geographical extremes of the Mediterranean Sea, where it is easier to cross this water, also makes it possible to observe in Portugal thousands of birds that seasonally use the migratory corridor of the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Furthermore, the climate of regions such as the Azores or Madeira creates shelter conditions and greater availability of food for the wintering of many species, namely small and medium-sized birds such as passerines.
The Sado Estuary Nature Reserve is one of the most important Portuguese wetlands and a vital place for many migratory and wintering species.
This is the case of the bluethroat (luscinia svecica), a rare bird throughout the year, with the exception of winter, when it shares the reedbeds and rushes that grow on the brackish banks, or the riverine vegetation on the banks of rivers and rice fields, with another species of pisco with resident populations (and also migratory) — the robin (erithacus rubecula).
On the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, you can see the coastal pastures on the south side of the island, in whose hedges and meadows you can see a rare migratory girl in these Atlantic islands, the European thrush (Pilar turdus).
Here it shares the habitat with a small resident bird, the ferfolha (regulus regulus), which although it is more common in thickets and forest areas dominated by heather and cedar bush (Junipers brevifolia), can also appear hopping along the branches of hedges and groves associated with pastures.
In the highlands of the eastern interior of the island of Madeira, there are several areas of more open landscape, which are the favorite habitat of two species of finch: the goldfinch (carduelis carduelis), which has large migratory populations in a European context; and the canary land (serinus canaria), an endemic species of Macaronesia (Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands and Cape Verde archipelagos).
This philatelic issue consists of three stamps, each with a face value of €0,86 and a circulation of 120 copies each; and three philatelic blocks with a circulation of 000 38 copies each, with two stamps of €000 each.
The illustrations of the stamps were made by Nuno Farinha.
The first-day obliterations will be carried out in Restauradores stores in Lisbon, Municipality II in Porto, Zarco in Funchal and Antero de Quental in Ponta Delgada.
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