Last week, Royal Mail issued four new pictorial “Post & Go” stamps featuring hibernating animals.
The stamps are overprinted with First Class, First Large, Second Class and Second Large values. Included in the four-stamp set is a hedgehog; a grass snake; a dormouse; and a brown long-eared bat.
ROYAL MAIL DESCRIPTION
- Hedgehogs like to hibernate in piles of dead leaves and vegetation, though this can make them vulnerable to garden bonfires.
- Grass snakes are cold-blooded and rely on sunlight for warmth. When the days grow too short, they crawl into vegetation or cracks in banks to hibernate.
- Dormouse are proverbially sleepy, dormice can spend more than half the year in hibernation, within carefully woven woodland nests.
- The brown long-eared bat needs a steady supply of insects, so when this food source disappears, they hibernate.
“Post & Go” stamps (also called “Faststamps”), are variable rate postage stamps printed on self-adhesive labels and sold by stamp vending machines by Royal Mail. Other postal services, such as Jersey Post, Guernsey Post, the Royal Gibraltar Post Office and Q-Post, also produce “Post & Go” stamps.