South Africa has apparently tightened up on yellow fever certificates for the world cup, wanting to see them from anyone arriving from another African country.

This has had a ripple effect throughout the continent, and apparently some countries are now insisting on seeing yellow fever certificates if you have arrived from another African country, even if you were only in transit.

Kenyan Airways flights to Tanzania, for example, stop in Nairobi; in theory, the border control at Kilimanjaro could ask to see the certificate.

If you are joining an Africa tour and your flights involve a transfer on the continent, or if you are going to be visiting another African country after your tour, this may mean that you should obtain a yellow fever certificate before starting your travels.

Which automobile manufacturer’s emblem included the silhouettes of six swallows?

Leave your answer as a comment on this post!

A Plain-capped Starthroat appeared Sunday at the Casa de San Pedro B&B in Hereford, AZ. Jon Dunn’s tour Arizona: Second Spring spends three nights here next month.

Will the starthroat still be there? No way to say, but historically, individuals of this species have lingered long and shown considerable “feeder fidelity” in southeast Arizona.

Last month, we asked:

What North American breeding bird has an English name that commemorates a site in the southeastern US and a scientific name that commemorates a site in the northwestern US?

Alexander Wilson first encountered the bird we now call Savannah Sparrow near that city in Georgia. The species had been described in 1789 by Gmelin, who named it sandwichensis for Sandwich Bay, Unalaska, Alaska, where the type was collected. I don’t know any species with a greater geographic gap between its English and its scientific names–do you?

Congratulations to our friend Dave Quady for the first correct response. He’ll soon be wearing a new WINGS cap–and you can, too, if you’re the first to answer correctly the next WINGS trivia question, set to appear in the June e-newsletter.

One of Canada’s most beautiful and most endangered ecosystems, British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley is a blindingly obvious choice to be the site of a new national park.

Gavin Bieber visits the Okanagan on his July 2012 tour of British Columbia in Summer. As Gavin writes, “The Okanagan Valley is a place of mesmerizing beauty, with huge rocky outcrops, large lakes, sagebrush, riparian woodland, and dry ponderosa pine forest at lower elevations, while there are spruce and fir forests higher up. Species of particular interest to birders  include Chukar, Northern Pygmy-Owl, Calliope Hummingbird, Lewis’s Woodpecker, Hammond’s and Dusky Flycatchers, Say’s Phoebe, Canyon and Rock Wrens, Lazuli Bunting, and such ‘eastern’ species as Veery and Bobolink.”

If you haven’t yet experienced Canada’s “Pocket Desert,” join Gavin next year. And if you have, consider registering your support for a new national park here.

Many thanks to Dick Cannings–