Cuan Miles

Awesome Bird drawings/collages by Cuan Miles from South Africa.
Both the Hadeda Ibis and the Trumpeter Hornbill are quite big, noisy birds.
The Ibis lives in the big wild fig and coral trees and loves to eat bugs and worms.
The Trumpeter Hornbill eats berries, geckos, frogs, bird eggs, and makes a sound comparable to someone learning to play the trumpet.



On the back sides Cuan added beautiful stamp prints and labels:





And another Bird on the great envelope, the Tristan Albatross:



and don't forget to check Cuan's Curious Collage website!



Thank you very much, Cuan!

Alison

Alison from South Africa created this beautiful envelope. See the Ladybird on the postage stamp! And a Caracal, and of course the Air Mail Bird.

Inside this envelope she sent a nice letter, accompanied by the postcard you see below. Speaking about South-African animals, usually the 'Big Five' come into mind. And the Giraffe, and Zebra.
However, there are of course many more animals. Among them these 'Ugly Five'.



I think these 'Ugly Five' at least as interesting as the more well-known African animals. They usually have a bad image, not only for their appearance, but also their behaviour is thought to be bad. Which is exaggerated by negative propaganda by movies like the Lion King (o.k. the Warthog has got a more sympathetic imago by this movie).

The 'Ugly Five' are very important animals in the whole circle of life. What would we do without them? How would the landscape look like, without these weird useful creatures? The Hyena and Crocodile allow herbivores to not starve from hunger, by eating some of them. And the Hyena, Marabou Stork and Vulture are the cleaners of the savannah.
And the Warthog, well, it's just a cute animal, holding the tail as an antenna when he/she runs around.

Petrolpetal

Along with the Birds on the envelope a very interesting mixed media mail art arrived, created by Petrolpetal from South Africa.
DId I say Birds? Yes! Note - besides the big fine drawn Bird - the Peacock feathers. And the bird on the South African Air Mail sticker! Funny that the Post has added the cancellation stamp in a similar direction to this sticker :-)

The mixed art consists of, if I'm correct, paint, stamp ink, serviette and plastic:



Petrolpetal also included this silver-lined paper. The stamp print must be a Feline. A Lioness, or Cheetah, so to see.



When I scanned it, the picture turned out to be totally different from what I saw (see picture above), so I also made photos, in which you can see the silver shining (see below).



Thank you very much, Petrolpetal!