Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 10s Guineafowl

“These are found in the wild only in Africa south of the Sahara and in Madagascar. The bird depicted is a Helmeted (or Crowned) Guineafowl, Numida meleagris, common in savannah and woodland throughout Southern Rhodesia. It is not a multicoloured bird, but nevertheless its red patch behind the eye, microscopic on the stamp, necessitated the addition of red as a fourth colour, employed also for the word “POSTAGE”.

The original sources were a transparency and a magazine picture, and a point of interest is that the white mottled spots on the bird’s plumage are actually much finer— with more and smaller spots— than indicated. The scale was enlarged because of the small format of the stamp, otherwise the spots would have been indistinguishable. Guineafowl are gregarious, noisy birds and they live on insects, seeds and grain. A flock roosting at night has been likened to “teenage girls in a dormitory.”