Rand Rudland is the guest speaker at the next meeting of the Sunshine Coast Natural History Society. Rudland will present Birds and Mammals of Panama's Canal Zone on Friday, April 6, at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt at 7:30 p.m.
Rudland studied biology and forest ecology at UBC and then completed his medical training at UBC and McGill University. As a medical doctor, he spent 27 years in rural general practice on the Sunshine Coast, as well as in the Northwest Territories, Churchill, Man. (a great birding place) and numerous small towns in B.C. Also, he has been the ship physician on the The World Discoverer during several cruises to the Antarctic and Aleutians.
Rudland has always been interested in the outdoors. He discovered white-water rafting and spent many summers exploring the Fraser, Thompson, Chilcotin and Nahanni rivers.
Birding became his next passion. He has birded in many places in North and Central America, the Antarctica, Falklands, New Zealand, Eastern Russia, the Aleutians and Japan. He has developed a remarkable skill in photographing birds and wildlife using a digital camera attached to a spotting scope, allowing him to obtain images at great distances.
During his presentation next Friday, he will describe his birding experiences in Panama. Panama is a fantastic place to bird and view nature, as it has over 900 species of birds in an area one-twelfth the size of British Columbia. In addition, tropical mammals, reptiles, frogs, butterflies and flowers abound there. Numerous pictures taken in Panama will accompany the presentation.
