Amazon World Zoo Park Watery Lane, Nr Arreton, Isle of Wight PO36 0LX View location map > | Tel: 01983 867122 | Fax: 01983 868560

Parrots

These very intelligent birds have very loud voices and many have the ability to mimic the human voice. This has made them highly sort after as pets but as they are often difficult to breed some birds found for sale as pets may have been taken illegally from the wild!

Toucans

This family of birds is only found in South America. The largest Toucan, the 'Toco', has very striking black and white plumage, a huge orange beak and is famous for being in advertisements for a certain alcoholic drink! It's huge beak is one of the mysteries that scientists are still trying to solve, why is it so big? What we do know is that it is very light and strong with an internal 'honeycomb' structure but is its size important for feeding or courtship? We are proud to have probably the largest public collection of toucans in the UK with 10 different species!

 

Birds of Prey & Owls

Predators have different ways of catching prey and often we put them into families according to this. Falcons are the fastest birds in the world with a female Peregrine Falcon capable of speeds exceeding 100 mph! Eagles have a massive wingspan and immense power that makes them majestic kings of the bird world! Owls with their silent flying and the ability to turn their heads almost 360 degrees are always a favourite with our visitors but they aren't as intelligent as they look...just don't tell them that!

Hummingbirds, Sunbirds & Honeycreepers

Believe it or not these tiny nectar feeders are the most aggressive animals on the planet! In fact if they were the same size as a crow it wouldn't be safe to leave our houses! But thankfully (for us) their aggression is directed not at humans but at each other as they are very territorial and will not allow a strange bird near their nest sites. Because of this it has taken many years of careful introductions to build up our group of birds and we have even managed to establish some pairs in our free flying sections so be sure to try and spot them!

 

Penguins

What can we say about these flightless birds that hasn't already been said? Not a lot but as they all have individual characters just like us it's fun to try to tell them apart and watch them swimming and playing! In fact our African Black-footed Penguins were all given new names when they arrived here, we just couldn't live with the ones they already had: Amanda, Posh and Louise......and that was the boys!!

Softbills

This may sound like an unusual name for a family of birds but it doesn't mean they have 'Soft' beaks. It actually refers to the type of food they eat! Birds in the Softbill family don't eat hard seeds they prefer soft fruits and insects hence the name! This is a very large family and contains birds of all shapes, sizes and colours including Turacos from Africa. These rainforest birds are very brightly coloured fruit eaters and our 4 species include the endangered Red Crested Turaco. Some of them are very tame and love to come down close to our visitors; sometimes you have to wonder who is looking at who!

Rare & Unusual

Flamingos are a popular sight in any zoo but did you know that they get their pink colouring from the shrimps they eat in the wild? We have to feed ours specially formulated food with added colour; otherwise we would have WHITE Flamingo!.

Whilst you are watching our Flamingos you will see other wading birds living with them, including the Jacana or Lilly Trotter. This bird has extremely long toes to help spread its body weight over Lilly leaves. This is so it can walk over them in search of food without sinking! Other unusual birds include our Guira Cuckoos, these strange looking birds have not needed to evolve much in thousands of years and still have wing claws that can be seen on the fossilised remains of prehistoric birds!

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