he was so proud of them! They were beautiful birds -- a male and a female, and the difference in head and beak size was obvious. Antonin has an excellent team of


keepers but the young of a few species are so rare or difficult to rear that he prefers to rear at least the first chicks in his own home. This was also true of the four Black-billed Amazons (Amazona agilis) that he hand-fed this year. This is a sensitive species that thrives in captivity only with special care and great attention to diet and cleanliness. It has very rarely been bred. I was very interested to see the four young of this small, dark green parrot. They were in perfect feather and health.


46 BIRD SCENE


To me, they are totally unlike members of the genus Amazona so I asked Antonin if he thought they were Amazons. “Absolutely not!” he replied. He was delighted that all four Amazona species in the zoo reared young this year. The others were the rare Yellow-billed (A. collaria), and the Red-tailed (A. brasiliensis), also the Festive (A.festiva) which although not rare in the wild, is uncommon in aviculture. Antonin lived and worked in the Philippines for a short while. This fact is reflected in the number of extremely rare bird species from those islands found in the zoo. These include the Blue-naped Parrot (Tanygnathus lucionensis) and the Mount Apo Lorikeet (Trichoglossus


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