1000th Card Sent

Postcard US-3972061 to Germany was the 1000th card sent from my PostCrossing account twimbk. It shows a pair of swans forming a heart symbol with love. Swans (天鵝) are birds of the family Anatidae (鴨科) within the genus Cygnus. The geese and ducks are swans' friends close relatives. A previous copy was sent to Russia as US-3284982 under another account.

USPS issued the Quilled Paper Heart Forever stamp at Dallas Love Field in Dallas, Texas on January 12, 2016, as the 44th stamp in its Love stamp series. The heart on the stamp was created using the ancient art of quilling by rolling and shaping narrow strips of paper, laying them on their edges, and gluing them in place to form intricate designs.

Shimokita Peninsula, Japan

Postcard JP-492787 came from the Shimokita Peninsula (下北半島),  located in the remote northeastern cape of the Japanese island of Honshū, separated from Hokkaido from the Tsugaru Strait. Shaped like an axe pointing to the west, the peninsula has a thin "handle" in the east connecting to the mountainous "blade" to the mainland.

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The whole Shimokita area was designated as a quasi-national park (下北半島国定公園 Shimokita-hantō Kokutei Kōen) on July 22, 1968. All Quasi-National Parks in Japan are managed by the local prefectural governments. The card shows many swans, migrated from Siberia for the winter, at Ominato Bay inside Mutsu Bay.