Common Terns Stamped Card

The common tern, sometimes known as the sea swallow, is a migratory seabird. Illustrator Chuck Ripper, of Huntington, West Virginia, painted the pair of mature birds in the stamp art in gouache on illustration board. Ripper’s previous work for the U.S. Postal Service includes the 1980 four-stamp Coral Reef block and the Louisiana World Exposition issue of 1984.