[from a PostNL press release] [click on any of the pictures for larger versions]
Experience Nature – Mount Saint Peter

Date of issue: 13 June 2022
Appearance: sheet of ten stamps in ten different designs
Item number: 420661
Design: Frank Janse, Gouda
Photography: Buiten-Beeld

On 13 June 2022, PostNL will publish the Experience nature – Mount Saint Peter issue: a sheet of ten stamps in ten different designs. The denomination on these stamps is ‘1’, the denomination for items weighing up to 20 g destined for the Netherlands. The stamp sheet about Mount Saint Peter is part of the multi-annual Experience nature 2021-2023 series. In the series, four stamp sheets are issued every year, each comprising ten different stamps. The stamps feature images of plants and animals in unique Dutch nature reserves across the country. In 2022, it is the turn of the provinces of Zeeland, Zuid-Holland, Limburg and Gelderland.

The issue of 13 June 2022 focuses on the chalk landscape of Mount Saint Peter, located in southern Limburg. The stamp sheets issued earlier this year were about Fort Ellewoutsdijk in Zeeland (3 January 2022) and the Nieuwkoopse Plassen in Zuid-Holland (21 February 2022). Later this year, stamps will be issued featuring the Leuvenum Woods on the Veluwe in Gelderland (15 August 2022).

[The site had been mined extensively for construction materials, especially marl, an ingredient in some types of cement.] The quarry is now being developed as a new nature reserve with rare calcareous slopes. Managing the area is a challenging task. Water is pumped from the quarry day and night, and sheep and goats keep the grass short, alternating with mowers. In summer, the calcareous grasslands are full of rare flowers and herbs that attract numerous species of insects, butterflies and birds. The underground tunnel system in the hill itself is a favourite hibernation spot for bats such as the Natterer’s bat, the pond bat and the whiskered bat. Together with the neighbouring Jeker Valley, Mount Saint Peter has been an official Natura 2000 site since 2013.

The Experience nature – Mount Saint Peter stamps feature the following ten residents of this nature reserve: salad burnet, whiskered bat, comma butterfly, wild marjoram, badger, bee orchid, purple starthistle, Eurasian eagle owl, lords-and-ladies and wood white butterfly. Each has its own stamp. The stamp sheet also features many more images of flora and fauna from this area. Translucent images of these have been incorporated into a separate graphic layer on the stamp sheet: the Eurasian eagle owl (top left), the flowers of the common rock-rose (top right), the Old World swallowtail (centre left), the stalk of the common rock-rose (centre), the pincushion flower (centre under centre) and the fruit of the lords-and-ladies (below left and right). These transparent images continue across the perforations and connect the stamps with each other and the sheet edge.

Technical Details:
Stamp size: 40 x 30mm:
Sheet size: 122 x 170mm
Paper: normal with phosphor print
Glue: self-adhesive
Printing technique: offset
Printing colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black
Print run: 285,000 sheets
Appearance: sheet of 10 stamps in 10 different designs
Design: Frank Janse, Gouda
Photography: Buiten-Beeld
Printing company: Cartor Security Printers, Meaucé-La Loupe, France
Item number: 420661