The nest was a nice warm place, with a very smooth floor and straight transparent walls which reached up way beyond Baby's head. There was a ceiling very high up, but it was fully of big lights, so Baby didn't look up there much. Sometimes Mummy would come and pull a sheet over the top of the nest, so that the lights didn't disturb Baby when he was trying to sleep. There were also sheets behind the transparent walls, so Baby couldn't see outside. He did sometimes catch a glimpse of the world outside when Mummy came in, pushing through a round hole in one of the walls. But it was dark outside and there only seemed to be Giants living out there. Mummy was very brave, and probably didn't mind the Giants, but Baby was frightened and was grateful they never came into the nest.

Baby hadn't always lived in the nest. He had been entirely alone when he first came out of his egg. He had vague memories now of collapsing on a smooth warm surface when he had finally broken free of the shell. There had been Giants there then too, and they had picked him up and put foul smelling things on him, and then finally put him in the nest. That was when Mummy had come to him. Mummy didn't look like the giants. She had a big beak and little round eyes. Baby had a big beak too, and although he couldn't see his eyes, he was sure he looked like Mummy too.

The only difference was that Baby could see he was growing little feathers all over his body, and Mummy didn't have any feathers. She had white skin that fell straight down from her head and disappeared out of the hole in the wall that she came through. Mummy didn't have any wings either; Baby assumed that his own wings would drop off if he grew up to be a Mummy. Or maybe the fact that he had wings showed that he would grow up to be something else than a Mummy. It was something to ponder while he waited for Mummy to come back.

All of a sudden, he saw the material beyond the walls starting to move. Full of trepidation, Baby waddled over to the hole in the wall just as Mummy pushed through. Mummy was the centre of his world, the most important person in the universe. She fed him from the tube in her mouth and she sometimes played with him, smoothing his little feathers with her big beak. Baby loved Mummy and wished she could stay with him all the time.

"What is the significance of feeding the chick with a glove puppet?" asked the reporter.

The keeper dropped the feeding syringe into a tray and peeled the puppet off her arm. "We've found that wild animals which are hand reared become confused and start thinking they're humans, because they never have a role model from their own species when they're small. Since we can't trust a female condor to take care of the chick, we have to use the glove puppet. This way, the chick grows up wary of humans, which increases its chances of survival in the wild."

"Wow." The reporter picked up the crudely made puppet and inspected its plastic beak and button eyes. "I guess the chicks aren't very bright if they're taken in by this thing," he said with a grin.