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Whatsapp Ibis would normally search for invertebrate in long grass or shallow water, but this one has managed to find a bone thrown away by a festival attendee.

A marvel of evolution, a sad tale of environmental degradation and an urgent will to survive: there's a lot more to the Australian white ibis—or bin chicken—than meets the eye. Ann Jones reports.

How many names are there for the ibis?

Bin chickens, tip turkeys, dumpster divers and, dare I say it, foul fowl—one thing is clear: the ibis is a bird with a bad reputation.

The huge wing span of the ibis can be seen, and smelled, across some of Australia's largest cities, including Sydney, the Gold Coast and increasingly in the south west of WA.

We've mucked up the natural habitat out there, and that's had a negative impact on a range of a species, but the ibis is one of the few which has actually adapted and changed its behaviour and moved to the coast.

The Australian white ibis (Threskiornis moluccus) is a long–legged bird of about 60 to 75 centimetres in height. It's mostly white, with delicate black tail feathers and it has a black, bald head with a very long downward curved beak.

When they fly in a group, they often make a long V shape, a beautiful sight to see soaring across an open sky.

Up close, the ibis' wing span measures over a metre wide, so they're quite impressive—though gusts of air moving off their wings do carry an odour. It's a dusty, musky, musty sort of feathery smell quite unique to the species.

During the mating season, the normally rosy pink flesh under the wing turns a bright crimson red, and this colour can be repeated in the skin pigmentation at the back of the head.

However, it's the slightly scaly legs, noisy roosting sites, rowdy teenagers, begging babies and aggressive approach to your hot chips that stick in people's minds when it comes to rubbish raptors.

Despite being revered in other times and cultures, it seems the ibis' vulture-like bald head and inability to keep its white feathers clean is too much to bear for many city dwellers.

There's no denying it—dump chooks are probably more often seen wading through piles of human refuse than they are through idyllic wetlands.

But the fact they're here at all should set off alarm bells.

You see, the ibis is a native bird, but not to the city environment.

'They're considered abundant, however they are declining in some habitats, and they are increasing in other habitats,' says Dr John Martin, wildlife ecologist with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.

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Whatsapp The wingspan of the ibis averages around 115cm, and it is a powerful flyer with a large range.

The number of ibis seen breeding in the Macquarie Marshes in NSW has declined severely over the last 30 years, and the story is similar along the vast inland waterways of NSW and Queensland that the ibis used to call home.

'All of those wetlands that are controlled, so river regulation, [have] shown declines in the abundance of a raft of bird species,' says Martin.

According to Martin, surveys carried out over three decades by researchers at the University of NSW have shown that 3,000–5,000 ibis are present in what would be considered their 'more natural range'—the inland wetlands.

'However [now] we're seeing twice that number—up to 9,000—in the Sydney region,' says Martin.

'Looking at the NSW Bird Observers spring survey data for the Sydney region we can see that the white ibis population fluctuated through the 1980s. At this time ibis were associated with natural or semi–natural environments such as Pitt Town wetland and urban parks.

'Twenty odd years later, ibis are still colonising new areas, today fuelled by the buffet of anthropogenic food sources: grubs and worms from grass sports fields and parks, invertebrates from stormwater retention basins, direct feeding from humans and scavenging from bins and landfills.'

Related: The endangered bunyip bird boom

It's the very things that disgust passers-by that enable ibis to survive against seemingly insurmountable odds in cities.

Those long, smelly wings enable them to fly hundreds of kilometres into new environments. The elongated legs and scales enable them to manoeuvre confidently among much larger humans.

That beak—with a sensory tip made for pushing into mud—and that bald head also offer the ability to nimbly open up the box of cold chicken pieces and coleslaw. That creepily silky skin is an assurance against germs and disease when they stick their heads deep into humans' rubbish bins.

That nest in a palm tree is an adaptation from a wetland reed bed, an island of spikes in the air that keeps their babies safe where an island haven is not available.

The large body gives them confidence in the face of predation by both humans and cats, and makes them stand out as a hazard on the roads while they forage for squashed biscuits moistened in the gutter.

Not all birds can do that.

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Whatsapp Australian white ibis chicks in the nest.

For every adaptable species like the ibis, however, there are those who cannot travel, who are scared of humans or industrial noise, are small enough to be eaten by suburban cats, are vulnerable without cover and whose beak is too specialised to eat a discarded ice–cream cone by the seaside.

The gift of the Australian white ibis to other birds, plants and animals is the message it brings: 'I am here because my home environment is no longer adequate for my needs.'

More is the shame is that we find it hard to love this bearer of bad news.

'What I would like everyone to do, when they see an ibis, is think about the conservation message that they can actually tell us. We've mucked up the natural habitat out there, and that's had a negative impact on a range of a species, but the ibis is one of the few which has actually adapted and changed its behaviour and moved to the coast,' says Dr John Martin.

'It's not just drought, drought is a part of the issue out there, but of course, it's river regulation. And yeah, we're working towards fighting those things, towards having more environmental flows and water for the environment.

'Because it helps everyone. It doesn't just help the water birds, a healthy environment is good for agricultural as well.'

Ah, I've thought of another ibis name: 'winged rubbish rats'.

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