johan dalgas frisch born 1930 is a brazilian engineer and ornithologistfrisch was born in so paulo in 1930 the son of danish immigrants svend frisch and ellen margareth dalgas frisch who came to reside in brazil in 1927 his maternal grandfather was enrico dalgas a famous danish forester from an early age he observed local birds and their behavior an interest encouraged by his father svend frisch was an artist who among other things drew brazilian birds eventually including some illustrations for books he coauthored with johanin 1950 frisch enrolled in the universidade presbiteriana mackenzie in so paulo graduating with a degree in industrial engineering in 1955 his first job was at a power line factory in 1958 he travelled to his employers headquarters in scotland he made use of this opportunity to meet european ornithologists and was introduced to their collections of recordings of bird songson returning to brazil frisch started recording birds initially using a cardboard funnel he refined this design as he made recordings and eventually made a parabolic dish for the same purpose on a trip to the pantanal he made several recordings of the local birdsin 1962 johan released some of his recordings as an album on lp vinyl canto das aves do brasil songs of the birds of brazil it was released simultaneously in brazil in london and in new york for 18 consecutive weeks his recordings of birdsong were the bestselling album in brazil the following year he released his second album entitled vozes da amaznia voices of amazonia which contains the song of the musician wren in 1974 he released the cd album sinfonia do natal with christmas songs such as silent night and jingle bells interspersed with sounds of birdsin 1964 he published the book aves brasileiras coauthored with his father svend that year he started a campaign to create a national park in the tumucumaque mountains which succeeded when president artur da costa e silva signed a decree protecting the area it would become tumucumaque national park in 2002also in 1964 his son christian was born frisch had a successful career as an engineer and in 1976 designed the wastewater treatment station at so pauloguarulhos international airport in 1981 he published the second edition of aves brasileiras around this time he was among the founders of associao de preservao da vida selvagem a wildlife conservation organization that marks national day of the bird every 5 october in 1992 he received the title of honorary citizen of texas for having rescued and repatriated one peregrine falcon that had been banded in texasin 1994 he published a book on hummingbirds coauthored with his son christian jardim dos beijaflores in 2001 he published os 12 cantos do brasil and in 2002 his fourth book cantos harmoniosos da amrica in 2005 he published the third edition of aves brasileiras now including a section on plants that attract birds and accordingly entitled aves brasileiras e plantas que as atraem many drawings in the book were those were made by svend for earlier editions and some of the rest were by christian