Some birders collect stamps with birds

Beth Collins watches birds with a magnifying glass. So do Ernie d'Anjou and Matthew Schaut and thousands of other Minnesotans.

Their birds are on postage stamps.

There are about 10,000 species of birds in the world, and about 25,000 bird stamps. Birds are one of the most popular topics for the estimated 60 million world stamp collectors.

Collins, who lives in Marshall, collects bird stamps, and stamps showing Northern Lights and trees and more. She has around 100,000 stamps on many topics, she told me.

D'Anjou, in St. Paul, knows the exact number — 4,548 bird stamps. He searches for particular species. Sometimes buying on eBay, he currently works with a dealer in Holland. D'Anjou has been searching, choosing, and buying for about 10 years, since his retirement.

Schaut, who lives in Minneapolis, began collecting when he was 6 years old. He says he will return to his favorites — Australian black swan stamps — when he retires. (There are hundreds; he wants them all.)

Reach extends outside range

Chris Gibbins of Norwich, England, one of the world's most dedicated bird stamp collectors (see bird-stamps.org), told me that his 12,000 stamps illustrate about 3,000 bird species. There is a Norwegian collector who has 3,500 (see birdtheme.org).

Gibbins accepts stamps only when the bird illustrated is a resident of or migrant through the country of issue. There are countries that raise revenue by hiring the design and issue of stamps intended only for collectors with a broad outlook.

Collins said owl images are on almost 900 postage stamps worldwide. There are but 216 owl species. Owl stamps come from countries that see no owls. It's birds without boundaries.

Collins' stamps are in self-made albums and boxes. Her collection fills much of her spare bedroom. Like other collectors, she maintains contact with postal services in several countries, seeking stamp updates.

Collins, like d'Anjou and many other collectors, is an active birder. Her sister brought her to stamps, her mother to birds. She has a life list of about 300 species. She can cover 50 of those with stamps. She said she could find the others if she tried.

(Having a stamp for each bird on a life list is an intriguing idea I intend to ignore.)

"My aim was to collect at least one stamp showing each world species," said D'Anjou. This isn't possible because only about 3,500 of the 10,000 species are depicted on stamps, he said.

"More realistically," he said, "my aim is to have at least one stamp for each available species." He believes he now covers about three-quarters of those birds.

Zoology meets design

Identification is always a birding issue, and no less so with stamps. Design errors occur. An often-used ID source is the online version of the 17-volume "Handbook of Birds of the World." Collectors also use Google. That's one extreme to the other.

Schaut thinks we've lost something as personal postal mail has declined. "I'm sad stamps have stopped being a part of everyday life," he said. "Stamps — and the letter writing and snail mail they imply — were fun, and a civilized way to spend one's time."

His point is well taken. Mail no longer offers the anticipation it once did, particularly for children. I soaked stamps off many envelopes when I was a boy.

There are other values, though. D'Anjou, interested in biology and zoology, sees birds and bird stamps as a combination of the scientific and the aesthetic. He, Collins and Schaut say they collect simply for pleasure. I suspect most collectors echo this.

In that regard, birding with a magnifying glass is much like birding with binoculars, only warmer in the winter.

Read Jim Williams' birding blog at startribune.com/wingnut.