“Follow me,” Nando said. “I know where it lives.”

It was late morning, hot, humid and quiet. Shafts of sunlight cut through the jungle as we followed a path through the latticed shade. A few hundred yards away, gigantic cargo ships stacked with containers chugged along the Panama Canal. But that was another world.

Where we were walking was a strip of loamy-smelling rainforest that lines the canal banks and serves as home to hundreds of species of birds. We were looking for a specific one.

At an overgrown spot in the forest that to me looked like any other, Nando, our guide, stopped.

The Panamanian birding guide Nando, whose full name is Ismael Hernando Quiroz Miranda, led the author and his family around the bird-rich Canal Zone in Panama. Above, Nando, left, calls out to a streak-chested antpitta. Accompanying him is his son, Ismael, who works with Nando.

“Whoit, whoit, whoit,” he gently whistled. Then he listened.

“You can’t just use your eyes,” he whispered. “You have to use your ears.”

The third time he called, I heard, faintly calling back, “Whoit, whoit, whoit.”

It was remarkable. Nando was speaking bird.

A plump little streak-chested antpitta fluttered down onto a stick, a few feet away. I stood, awe-struck, as man and bird softly called back and forth.