The African Fish Eagle

 

Date of Issue : 14 June 2013

South Africa Post issued a souvenir sheet featuring African Fish Eagle It is a.part of the South African Post Office’s bird series . This is the first lenticular stamp issued by South Africa. In 2012, the African Fish Eagle was named Bird of the Year – one of several initiatives by Bird Life South Africa aiming to raise awareness about birds, their habitat and conservation.

 

The African Fish Eagle

The African Fish Eagle is one of the most widespread birds of prey south of the Sahara and is officially acknowledged by many African nations. A very distinctive bird in flight, the white head, neck, upper belly, and tail contrast sharply with the chestnut and black body feathers.

The African Fish Eagle is most frequently found at the rivers, dams, lakes and estuaries of Africa south of the Sahara. Although they can hunt at any time of the day, they usually do so in the early morning for about two hours. Fish make up 90% of their diet, while the other 10% consists of young water birds or carrion. They are able to snatch fish weighing 1.5 kg, carrying them off in flight. Anything heavier and weighing up to 3 kg (roughly the same mass as their own body) is caught and “planed” across the water onto the shore. It takes an average of eight strikes for a successful catch.

In 2012, the African Fish Eagle was Bird of the Year – one of several initiatives by Bird Life South Africa aiming to create awareness about birds, their habitat and conservation.

The flight of the African Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer) stamp sheet was issued as part of the South African Post Office’s bird series. For the first time in South Africa the lenticular technique is applied to the stamps.

What is a lenticular?

According to Paul Meijboom from Joh Enschede Printers in the Netherlands, a lenticular is a combination of a special lens and an arrayed image that simulates animation or depth. Auto stereoscopic images refer to pictures that take advantage of how the human eye processes the two images that the left and right eyes receive. They interpret them as depth and three-dimensionality. A lenticular uses the movement of our bodies in relation to produce a pseudo-hologram that looks like a person running, an apple popping out of a flat poster, or a distant car approaching.

 

From Our Readers…

SOME 100 YEARS OLD PRIVATE POSTCRDS

- Sudhir Jain

In the early 20th Century, Postcards were very popular and cheapest mode of communication.  As the availability of the official postcards was little difficult, especially in small towns, many stationery merchants and shopkeepers had printed private postcards without stamps. Businessmen were purchasing and using these postcards for their correspondence.

 

Here I am exhibiting four such private postcards used 100 years ago. All these were posted in the year 1913 in different months like January, February, May and June 1913. All were sold by different Gujrati shopkeepers of Mumbai. Name and addresses of publishers are printed vertically in Gujrati language and Three Pies stamp of King Edward is affixed in all these postcards. All were posted from SAUGOR Post Office (now name changed to SAGAR0 of Madhya Pradesh and delivered at a small village KHURAI.