The letter above and the stamp below arrived the same day: the first from the UK, the later from Hungary. Until now, I hadn't realised that some owls take their scientific name from the Greek Goddess Athena, associated with wisdom.
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| Athene noctua |
A British version, belonging to this set:
And...Maybe another one?
Quelle belle série de timbres et enveloppe !
ReplyDelete:)
DeleteBeautiful stamps!
ReplyDelete"Wisdom begins in wonder", so true! Applicable in daily life. And 'wonder' combined with 'observation', I think the start of many great findings/inventions (like penicilline for example).
Thank you for posting the stamp of Meneer de Uil (Mister Owl), he was the main figure (reporter, and daily news reader presentator) of the Fabeltjeskrant (fabel = tale, -tjes: little/small, and krant = newspaper). This children's programm I used to watch every evening on Dutch television (early seventies). And newspapers, daily news are very actual. Already always, and now I realize this even more. I noticed that daily news readers / media can help to provide the people with good information, but I also notice that they are able to influence policies in right or (tmo) incorrect directions, by their choice of whom to interview and by asking repetitively suggestive questions, this way interrupting experts/mayors' wise stories..
Fortunately Mister Owl was a very thoughtful news reader/writer. Who never interviewd people (er, the inhabitants of the forest) before camera.
And I love to see him honoured by a stamp :-)
Now that you explained who Meneer de Uil is, I like even more this stamp! Do you think he belongs to the species Athena noctua, too?
DeleteHe belongs to the species Athena, but is not an athena noctua, because the athena noctua is very small and awake at night (and in Dutch the athena noctua is named steenuil, steen = stone, uil = owl).
DeleteDue to his ear brushes (don't know how these are named in English), meneer de Uil looks a bit more like the oehoe (buhu). But in fact I conclude that meneer de Uil is, due to both being awake at day, and bringer of the daily news, an Athena diurna :-)
Funmy fact: when the Fabeltjeskrant was broadcasted daily, we had a prime minister named Joop den Uyl, so there have been some parodic songs based on the Fabeltjeskrant's begin tune 'Hallo meneer de Uil, waar brengt u ons naar toe?' (hello mr Owl, to where are you taking us (today)?), replacing this wise owl's name by the (also wise, but according to the former opponents not) pm's name: 'Hallo meneer den Uyl,....' and then all kind of other words.
:DDD
Delete@Eva Such a nice collection of all sorts of owls, and a great quotation.
Delete@Heleen In English they are ear tufts. (Some species of cat, and breeds of domestic cat, also have these). That was your English lesson for the day, which I am happy to provide free of charge :)
Two English lessons! Because... ear tufts? I didn't even know that ear tufts exist, let alone they had a name... :D
DeletePerhaps one is an English lesson, the other one anatomy :)
DeleteGoogle translate has the Spanish version as:
mechón de oreja
And Catalan as
esquinç d’orella
Either of those sound correctly translated?
:-) Headmaster FinnBadger, thank you for your lesson! I always appreciate your English lessons a lot!
DeleteIn Dutch the ear tuft is named oorpluim (oor = ear, pluim = plume). As far as I understand my EN-NL dictionary, a tuft (if translated literally into 'kuif') is more in the middle of the head, before/above the forehead.
And the ear tufts are typical for the buhu, and meneer de Uil; as far as I know other owls haven't these :-)
I've found floc de plomes in Catalan, which you can translate literally as 'feathers tuft'. But maybe there is a more specific name.
DeleteYou can add ear tufts to the list of things you never thought we'd discuss on the blog - like the net curtains from a while ago :)
Delete:DDD
Deleteİlginç. Yunan mitolojisi aslında derin konu:)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
Delete