"We've just got passed by a hummingbird. Did you hear that?"

 

“Close your eyes and just imagine you died and went to heaven, and you're in the Garden of Eden. It's just so incredibly beautiful, flowers everywhere, myriad variety of brilliantly colored birds, butterflies zipping all over the place. It’s just like paradise. It's fantastic.”

 

“This is the best time of the day for me, getting up, you know, 5 o'clock in the morning,  then heading off into the stakes, you know, up in the mountains. And the atmosphere or temperature up here is just fantastic, with pure oxygen(s). It's the typical day in the office for me.”

 

Birds are Roger's passion, and the Asa Wright Nature Center where he works draws amateur and professional ornithologists from many countries, just to catch a glimpse of some of the planet's most dazzling and unique birds.

 

“It's so fast you know, you just really got to be quick on the draw, otherwise you’ll miss him. Got him. Here you go. Oh, look at that purple honeycreeper. Whoa. The color is so unique, the fantastic state of purple.”

 

There are some 460 species of birds on the island, and Neckles is trying to catch them all on film. It is painstaking work.

 

“But if you're not prepared to, to wait for the shot, you won't get it.”

 

Neckles has studied the birds' habits and calls tirelessly.

 

“Come on, talk to me. But these birds skillfully with their beaks and their feet, you know, stitch and weave these, these, these nests together, and they are really strong. They build them on the edges of, the very edges of the branches, and, and winds come, hurricanes will come, and you know, gale will swing them. They wouldn't blow down.”

 

Over the years, Neckles has found his own place in these woods.

 

“I came here in 1978, and I was so enchanted with its topography overland here in Trinidad and Tobago that I thought, ‘oh yes, I could do this’.”

 

“Oh, look, check this out, check this out, Look at this. Look at this… Watch this. Watch this...”

 

Through his research, Neckles has come to know all the wildlife on the island.

 

“Wow, you don't wanna get your fingers in there.”

 

But time and again, it is the birds that draw him into the woods. This morning he hopes to capture on-film a very tiny elusive bird.

 

“Oh, look at this. This is the most festive hummingbird in Trinidad and Tobago, the smallest hummingbird in Trinidad and Tobago. It’s tough to go get. Oh, look at it …”

 

He’s been trying for 6 weeks to get this shot, an agonizing wait that comes down to a breathless moment.

 

“I'm very very high right now. Though goose bumps are all on my arms, this is still fantastic.”

 

Neckles does not mind waiting for that perfect moment. Like the birds he follows, he lets the morning and its beauty unfold around him.

 

“No plans to give this up at all because, you know I feel I could do this for the rest of my life, and every time I go out, I see something new.”