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The bird is the word...

a book review by Eric Jackson

Where to Find Birds In Panama:

A Site Guide for Birders

by George R. Angehr and Dodge & Lorna Engleman

Panama Audubon Society, Panama (2006)

391 pages in paperback

ISBN 9962-8847-5-6

Dodge and Lorna Engleman, husband and wife, both medical doctors and friends of this reporter's family, visited my sister in Las Uvas some years ago and identified dozens of bird species over the course of a day on that small farm. Lorna, a Panamanian, explained to me the difference in a couple of birds that seemed too similar to readily identify to me --- by way of a demonstration of the distinct bird calls. OK, I'd heard those --- but I had no idea that a human could so faithfully reproduce them.

Dodge was an internal medicine specialist at the old Coco Solo Hospital in its US Army period, occupying more or less the same position that my father had decades before. When the facility was turned over to Panama to become the Policlinica Hugo Spadafora, the Englemans moved away to Kansas.

However, copies of their notes, maps and charts of notable birdwatching sites in Panama stayed in the hands of members of the Panama Audubon Society, of which they were avid and leading members. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute ornithologist George R. Angehr took the Englemans' materials, added his specialized knowledge and did a lot of original field work of his own and all of this, plus observations of Audubon Society members and other birding enthusiasts, maps from the Panama Canal Authority and Panama's Ministry of Agricultural Development, research records from the Smithsonian, was put together by Angehr with some generous support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Say what? Why would USAID do a bird book? They're a development agency.

Yes, and in case you haven't noticed, birdwatching is a profitable business in Panama. Notwithstanding the impressions given off by unfortunately influential people who would cover over this isthmus in concrete and plastic and try to sell it to the dumber class of gringo tourist, nature has this high economic value, a business-generating capacity that every December brings flocks of tourists to Panama for the Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count. There are little hotels all around the country that remain in business only because birders stay there. Our privileged location in a bottleneck on the migratory bird flyways of the Americas helps, but do enough stupid things and we could squander that local advantage.

Because of this book, which tells people about 60 outstanding places to look at the birds, how to get there and what one is likely to see at various times of the year, Panama is going to see more of this sort of economic activity. Unless, of course, it gets covered in concrete and plastic.

The first printing of this book was but 1,000 copies, which means that the Panama Audubon Society is going to recoup its investment and not have a bunch of unsold copies hanging around.

But because this is an all-time classic for those in and outside of Panama who love our natural attactions, if you don't move quickly and get your copy right away, you may have to wait for an undetermined and excruciating time for another printing in order to get one. Go to the bookstore in the Smithsonian's Tupper Center in Ancon, or to the bookstand at the Parque Natural Metropolitano headquarters on Via Juan Pablo II, or visit the Audubon Society online to get your copy before they all run out.

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Books, Where to Find Birds in Panama