I felt like a newborn, suddenly entering a world that stunned my senses. At the Asa Wright Nature Centre, gifts have been flowing to the animal world for over fifty years. So the feeders teem with birds that would ordinarily be seen only as a flash of colour in the deep bush. When I saw the purple honeycreepers, I instantly understood Carnival. I wanted to swath myself in a purple cape and leap onto a pair of bright yellow stilts.