Garden Wildlife pictured in March 11 Royal Mail set of 10

By David Hartwig

A set of 10 stamps in a March 11 issue from Great Britain’s Royal Mail celebrates the variety of animal species that inhabit gardens in the United Kingdom.

“British people are renowned for their love of gardens, and no matter how small, in urban or rural areas, wildlife can thrive there,” David Gold, director of external affairs and policy at Royal Mail, said. “These stamps capture the rich diversity of wildlife found in gardens across the UK, and remind us how lucky we are to live so close to nature.”

The stamps, presented in two horizontal se-tenant (side-by-side) strips of five, each show a different animal common in British gardens. Text on the lower left corner of each stamp gives the common name of the animal shown.

The stamps in one se-tenant strip of five are valued at the second-class rate (currently £0.85), and the stamps in the other se-tenant strip of five are valued at the first-class rate (currently £1.65).

The five second-class stamps show a fox, blackbird, common frog, blue tit and badger, and the first-class stamps show a smooth newt, hedgehog, robin, buff-tailed bumblebee and garden snail.

The three mammals in the set are the fox, badger and hedgehog. These animals eat a variety of food, with badgers having an affinity for earthworms and hedgehogs surviving on a diet of slugs, snails, beetles and caterpillars. Foxes have a wide diet that helps the animals adapt to many different habitats.

The common frog and smooth newt comprise the amphibians in the list, and both are widespread across Britain. The smooth newt holds the distinction of being the only animal in the set of 10 that has not previously been pictured on a Great Britain stamp.

The buff-tailed bumblebee and garden snail represent invertebrates, or those animals without backbones. The name of the buff-tailed bumblebee comes from the color of the queen’s tail; workers and males have white tails.

The garden snail is the second variety of snail shown on a Great Britain stamp; the other is from a 1998 Endangered Species set and shows a Shining ram’s horn snail (Scott 1788).

The three birds pictured in the Garden Wildlife set, the blackbird, blue tit and robin, are all common in Great Britain. Robins have been depicted on several Great Britain issues, and all three birds appeared along with the black-headed gull in a 1966 set of four stamps (Scott 461-464).

A robin appears again in the cachet on a first-day cover included with the March 11 Royal Mail issue and franked with all 10 stamps in the set.

In addition to a pictorial postmark from Tallents House showing a frog on a lily pad, a first-day pictorial postmark from Fox Hill, a neighborhood in the southern England town of Petworth, shows a fox.

Royal Mail also offers a collectors sheet with the set of 10 stamps and attached labels featuring additional photographs of the species pictured on the stamps.

A presentation pack included with the issue contains all 10 stamps along with text from Dawn Scott, executive dean of the School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences at Nottingham Trent University.

Other products offered with the Garden Wildlife stamps include a set of 10 postcards reproducing the stamp designs.

The Garden Wildlife stamps were designed by Stop, Look and Listen and printed by Cartor Security Printers by lithography. The stamps measure 41 millimeters by 30mm and are perforated gauge 14.5 by 14.

The strip of five first-class stamps and the strip of five second-class stamps are each available in sheets of 50 stamps (sold in panes of 25 at most postal outlets).

The Garden Wildlife stamps and related products are available from Royal Mail online. Ordering information also is available from Royal Mail, Tallents House, 21 S. Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB, Scotland.

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