The 240 kilometres of ocean separating Tasmania from the big island has kept us safe from the scourge of city parks in Melbourne and Sydney – the Australian white ibis.
This strange, mercurial bird goes by the name of “bin chicken” and “tip turkey” in some parts. In its more aggressive moments it is also known as the “sandwich eater” and the “picnic pirate”, so it’s a welcome relief that it rarely reaches Tasmania on its travels and does not breed here.
Despite its pejorative name, the Australian ibis deserves our respect, not least because it is a great survivor, a battler, making the most of this thing we humans call progress which has robbed the ibis of its natural home.
As swamps have been drained to create suburbs, the ibis has turned its attention to exploiting human food waste to supplement its diet. In turn, the human environment has provided rich pickings.
Given a choice, though, the ibis has always been drawn to its natural habitat away from the cities and this has been demonstrated to remarkable effect by the recent devastating floods in New South Wales and Queensland.
As the rains fell, the ibis left the cities for the banks of swollen rivers and sodden pastures, yielding their natural foods of worms and river life, instead of McDonald’s.
Although ibis attract unfavourable epithets, their departure from the cities has made headline news in the mainland press. It appears many people actually love the birds, myself included. It’s always a joy to see them in Melbourne and revel in their curious attributes which include a long, curved beak on a black head and a snow-white body.
Viewing the more unsavoury side of the ibis as they raid rubbish bins for food, it is hard to comprehend that these birds were one of the first to be recorded in history, not so much in the science of biology but in folklore.
The sacred ibis of Egypt, a very close relative of the Australian species, was a key feature in the age of the Pharaohs. The ibis were associated with the god Thoth, whose image in hieroglyphs is depicted in profile as a human-like figure with the head of the ibis. Thoth, among other roles, was considered to be a scribe for the other gods.
The Australian ibis was once considered to be a sub-species of the African bird, along with an Asian one, but the latest scientific research has found it is a separate species.
While the Australian ibis is proliferating in number, the sacred ibis has declined to such a degree that is has vanished from the Nile Valley and other regions of Egypt. It remains though in mummified form, found in thousands of pottery vases offered as sacrifices to the gods at ancient burial sites. The ibis were believed to speed the dead on the way to the afterlife.