It’s cool, cloudy, and drizzling lightly at 7 a.m. when we leave for a morning of bird-watching with Ramdas. We take the north road above Asa Wright (called the Blanchisseuse Road because it leads to a town of the same name), and drive up to the power station at the top of the hill.

I enjoy the vista, thinking the power station only mars the scenery—until Ramdas calls our attention to a large object on the station’s chickenwire fence. It’s a huge insect—its legspan wider than my hand, its body a speckled bright orange and black. I recognize it as a harlequin beetle. Ramdas tells us that the beetles seem to be attracted by the bright lights of the power station at night.

Ramdas is an avid birdwatcher himself, and a bit of a show-off. He seems intent on finding every bird in the guidebook for us to see, and I certainly can’t complain. Whenever the car slows to a crawl and Ramdas (to my alarm!) takes his eyes off the road to look upwards toward the forest canopy, we know we’re getting warm. When he starts whistling birdcalls, it’s our cue to ready the binoculars.

After one particularly complex whistle, Ramdas explains, “That’s the black-faced ant thrush.” I make the mistake of trying to imitate the sound, and like all good musicians who hear a tune being mangled, Ramdas looks pained. “No, no, no, it’s like this,” he says with a sigh, and whistles again. Eventually, I get it.

We climb out, tiptoeing toward the edge of the forest. “Shh…look, there it is,” Ramdas says. We crane our necks to look. Then we see it: a dark-colored, hen-like bird walks, slowly and cautiously, across the forest floor, bobbing its head. Ramdas whistles and the bird raises its head, perplexed, and then calls back. I put another check-mark in my guidebook.

One bird on our list of “must-sees” has been the collared trogon. This bird—the symbol of Asa Wright Nature Centre, and emblazoned on its T-shirts—is one of the most beautiful to be found on Trinidad, wth an iridescent green-and-blue head, red belly, and black-and-white striped back. It is widespread in the first- and second-growth forests, where it is most often seen in the branches just below the forest canopy.

Ramdas drives slowly, craning his head precariously out the window and mimicking the trogon’s call, a series of high-pitched whistles. Suddenly, the car jolts to a halt. “The trogon called back to us—I heard it!” exclaims Ramdas.

We search in vain for several minutes, and Ramdas then excitedly points upward. I don’t see any bird, but he tells me to follow a particular branch with my eyes. Suddenly I see a flash of movement and a flap of wings, and a moment later the trogon flies directly overhead. Feeling like a gambler who hopes a roulette wheel will stop on his number, I hope the trogon will land. And I’m in luck: it does. Right over my head. I aim my camera and snap a photo of the brilliant-hued bird, feeling like I’ve just hit the jackpot. Can it get any better than this?

Later, I find that it can. At 4:30 p.m., after teatime on the Asa Wright verandah, we leave to go turtle watching on Matura Beach in the northwest corner of Trinidad. Jogi, our guide for the trip, points out wildlife along the way, and we see red howler monkeys, and a variety of birds including toucans. At Matura we pick up another guide, Francis, who is an expert “turtle-watcher.”

We eat dinner in a picnic area just above the beach. It is another specially-prepared meal from Asa Wright—noodles, barbecued pork chops, salad, and the obligatory rum punch, which is marvelously thirst-quenching. It’s an enjoyable meal, which we eat informally from paper plates while sitting on a concrete wall and chatting. Jogi, like all of the guides at Asa Wright, as I’m discovering, seems to be a born naturalist, with a talent grown out of pure, simple enthusiasm. He delights us with a description of his garden at home, which is like a lesson in ecology. He points out that the caterpillars devouring the frangipani bush on his front lawn are frangipani worms—a well-known, dazzlingly colorful species whose diet is limited only to frangipani.

After dinner, Francis calls us down to the beach. Just as we arrive, he turns over a bucket and out pour leatherback turtle hatchlings, all struggling to get to the water’s edge. I’m a bit disappointed—it’s canned, touristy, and mildly un-ecological—but as I learn, Francis belongs to a conservationist group that is working hard to protect the leatherback in Trinidad, patrolling beaches like this one to discourage hunting of the turtles or taking of their eggs.

We watch the little turtles scramble down to the sea, shining our flashlights for a better view. Francis tells us to shine them out toward the water because the turtles are attracted to light—if we shine them in the wrong direction, the hatchlings could become stranded onshore.

Because the mosquitoes are biting, we slap on some bug repellent and then head along farther down the beach. We are joined by a small group from the local conservation society, out counting turtle nests. They tell us that an adult female leatherback was spotted earlier some distance down the beach—and the search is on! We race along the darkened beach, shining our flashlights, the roar of large waves warning us to stay back from the water’s edge because of the strong current. With each footstep, the sand glows green with bioluminescent algae. Up ahead we see something massive and bulky that looks vaguely like a rock on the sand. We run faster before it escapes into the water—a female leatherback.

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