P102 State Birds & Flowers
   This beautiful poster was inspired by the postage stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, which quickly became the best selling series in its history.
   You would expect the state bird of Maryland to be the Baltimore oriole, and you can understand New Mexico being represented by the roadrunner, but why did dry, land-locked Utah choose the California sea gull? It was because in 1848, migrating gulls saved the early settlers from starvation by eating up the Rocky Mountain locusts that were destroying their crops. The fifty states are listed alphabetically. Each bird and flower is identified by its common and its scientific name.