Parrots raising racket across wide area (6)
I believe the answer is:
macaws
'parrots' is the definition.
(I know this)
'raising racket across wide area' is the wordplay.
'raising' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'racket' becomes 'scam' (racket is a type of scam or scheme).
'across' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'wide' becomes 'w' (abbreviation e.g. in cricket).
'area' becomes 'a' (maths abbreviation).
'w'+'a'='wa'
'scam' placed around 'wa' is 'swacam'.
'swacam' reversed gives 'MACAWS'.
(Other definitions for macaws that I've seen before include "Long-tailed parrots of Central and South America" , "Long-tailed, brilliantly-coloured parrots" , "More than one bird" , "Birds" , "Brightly-coloured parrots" .)