A few years ago, an Aus­tralian na­tive saw a pic­ture of a bird on a Web site. He had nev­er seen the bird in it's nat­ur­al habi­tat and want­ed to do so. The man board­ed a flight a few days lat­er, and on his ar­rival to Trinidad, head­ed di­rect­ly to the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre, in the Ari­ma Val­ley. Sto­ries like these abound from vis­i­tors, who speak with adu­la­tion when they dis­cuss the va­ri­ety of bird species at the world-renowned cen­tre.

Equipped with bird-watch­ing equip­ment and a love of nat­ur­al beau­ty, hun­dreds of peo­ple jour­ney to this pro­tect­ed wildlife haven in the hills an­nu­al­ly, where hun­dreds of species of birds call the pro­tect­ed for­est around the cen­tre, home. From the ve­ran­dah of the cen­tre, birds flock in the ear­ly morn­ing light, flit­ting from tree to tree, eat­ing and chirp­ing while na­ture lovers ob­serve with­out in­ter­fer­ence. And as the birds fly around, igua­nas, agoutis and oth­er ground an­i­mals for­age for food be­low, hunt­ed on­ly by pho­tog­ra­phers in search of a per­fect shot. The cen­tre has been a part of T&T eco-tourism for more than a cen­tu­ry and is al­so the on­ly place in the world where the oil­bird is ac­ces­si­ble for view­ing.