Jersey Stamps: Flockdown - the story of the Lockdown Birds 

Berni Martin lives in a first floor flat in the parish of St Brelade, in the west of Jersey. Whilst she wouldn’t describe herself as an artist, she spends a lot of time crafting, making and photographing.

Outside Berni’s window is a huge tree alongside which she likes to hang bird feeders. She enjoys watching the birds who come to eat the seed, each with their own personality and trademark song. She particularly likes watching the fussy eaters who cunningly shake the smaller seeds to the ground to get to the bigger, tastier nuts.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, people stayed at home to stay safe and save lives.

Colourful birds to brighten each day

With no cars on the roads and no people to disturb them, wildlife like the birds outside Berni’s window, became braver, and the birdsong became clearer and louder. Every day during Jersey’s lockdown, Berni Martin took out a box of paints gifted to her by a friend and spent a few minutes creating, sketching, and painting a colourful bird.

She did this every day for 100 days, numbering each one as she went. The result is a collection of 100 wonderfully colourful birds, each with its own special character and each a symbol of hope and freedom, indicative of everyone’s ambition to remain optimistic throughout the pandemic.

Issued in time for spring, and almost a year since the start of Jersey’s COVID-19 lockdown, eight self-adhesive stamps feature a selection of paintings from Berni’s full collection of one hundred beautiful birds.

Technical details:

• Stamps, First Day Cover and Presentation Pack illustrated by Berni Martin.
• Self-adhesive stamps printed in full colour process lithography by Cartor Securiy Printers, France.  
• Die cut stamp size: 36mm x 30mm and 30mm x 36mm.
• Stamp products © Jersey Post Ltd 2021.