This four-part series of articles deals with a hobby of mine which I refer to as "office birding" or "a different kind of birding". No, not looking out of the window and searching for birds but looking at birds on the stamps on the letters I receive through the mail. The first article deals with birds on stamps of South Africa, Part II will deal with the birds on the stamps of South West Africa and finally we shall have a look at the wonderful bird stamps we have in Namibia (Parts III & IV). Ever since stamps were first used as tokens for payment of postal services, they have depicted, inter alia, images of important people, scenes of natural beauty, buildings, development projects, plants, animals and birds. Apart from being a mirror of our society, they also reflect our awareness of issues important enough to be displayed on our stamps. In South Africa stamps were used for the first time in the Cape of Good Hope on 1 September 1853.