Hello Again, Sydney

One Sydney-sider's experiences moving back to Sydney after a long absence overseas.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

What is this?








If you answered "ibis", you get five points and a golf clap. If you said "sacred ibis" you get the same thing, but remember, nobody likes a know-it-all. And if you threw caution to the wind and said said "the scourge of Sydney's parks and rubbish bins", you get the whitegoods, the holiday to Dunk Island, the Rav4 and the John Karandonis shoes.

Since I've been away, there has been an ibis population explosion, and some people aren't thrilled about it. In a recent study of Hyde Park's least-liked features, "Ibis removing rubbish from the bins" came in at number eight, tied with rats. Number one, incidentally, was homeless people.

If you just looked at the rather attractive specimen above, you might wonder what the problem was. But most of the ibis around Sydney have dirty grey feathers in place of that white plumage. Combine this with the vulgar beak and their persistence in waiting for food scraps, and it's enough to put you off your chicken sandwich. If anyone is considering remaking The Birds (and reading this blog - har!) they could shoot it in Sydney with an ibis twist. Just imagine it -a flock of ibis in a Westfields shopping centre, sucking the brains out of terrified shoppers.

And before you ask "what brains?" let's move right along to the Egyptians. Why did they revere the ibis? And why the hell are they classified as 'sacred'? If I had even a skerric of investigative instinct I'd look it up on Wikipedia, but really, it's late, and I've got an early start tomorrow. If there are any modern-day Thoth worshippers out there, please do fill me in.

1 Comments:

At 10:43 pm, Blogger Becky Willis Motew said...

I don't think we have ibises here (ibi?). They look suspicious to me, but then I don't like wildlife.

love,b

 

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