Orange-Winged Amazon

They screw up their eyes in your flashlight beam and utter faint growls, indignant that you should disturb them. Next door, the orang-utans, locked passionately in each other’s arms, snore so loudly that it seems as though the very floor vibrates. In all the cages there is deep, relaxed breathing from sleeping monkeys, and the only sound apart from this is the steady patter of claws as the nine-banded armadillo, who always seems to suffer from insomnia, trots about his cage, making and remaking his bed, carefully gathering all the straw into one corner, smoothing it down, lying on it to test its comfort, then deciding that the corner is not suitable for a bedroom, removing all the bedding to the opposite end of the cage, and starting all over again. Upstairs, the flying squirrels gaze at you with enormous liquid eyes, squatting fatly on their haunches, while stuffing food into their mouths with their delicate little hands. Most of the parrots are asleep, but Suku, the African grey, is incurably inquisitive, and as you pass never fails to pull his head out from under his wing to see what you are doing ...»