They Could Never Make Me Trust Cops

they could never make me trust cops

The story of the Australian white ibis is hysterical in many ways.

These birds are native to Australia, yes, but they're not technically native to the cities. Or, well, kinda?

So, Australian ibises typically lived in inland wetland areas. Australia, however, is a dry-ass continent, and the swamps aren't always wet, so whenever there's a dry spell and the swamps dry up and the food dwindles, the ibis colonies will migrate to the coast for food. I suppose when their presence caused enough competition with existing coastal birds they'd fly back inland and hopefully the wetlands would be wet again.

Enter the Europeans - the ibis didn't have much contact with the white man for a hundred years or so, wetlands were too annoying to actively clear, so the white man mostly stayed out and the ibis generally doesn't leave while there's food. Or maybe they did, and the white man towns were too tiny to register for them and they just did their usual thing.

Come the 1970s, severe drought conditions once again led to ibises to flee the wetlands (and the wetlands were probably extra hurt and extra unable to recover due to water diversion for agriculture).

They went for the coasts, and there, due to the absolutely boom in Australian urban sprawl, they found....

Huh. That's new. But was there food?

The answer was yes there was, and not only that, it was almost like the food set out specifically for them!

I am of course talking about bins.

Bins have a couple of nifty features if you're an ibis. One, they contain food scraps, especially protein scraps. Two, the openings tend to be fairly far off the ground, so rats and other flightless creatures can't get to the food (the cockroaches can, which is a plus for the ibis because they eat bugs!)

Two, the bottoms are low, and ibises are wading birds so they have long legs and long beaks. Seagulls, crows and pigeons all have to wait for the bin to be fairly full - ibises can get in there at half full!

And three, natural environment for the ibis is diving into a fetid stagnant swamp with nasty bacteria to eat wriggling things. Their beaks and heads are specially adapted for that - they're bald, and the skin is specially adapted for diving into gross places. Their beaks are sharp and dextrous, so they can open packaging or simply pierce it to get at the tasty, tasty leftover fried chicken or whatever. And if the chicken's already got maggots? Fantastic, they love eating bugs.

So they don't wanna go back. Why the hell would they go back? And with every new drought, even more ibis leave the drying wetlands, find the cities, and decide to stay.

I mean, there's probably a selection effect - the birds that are scared of humans eventually return to their home wetlands, but the ones that aren't decide they're just gonna start nesting in the urban parks. Wetlands are also getting drier and drier (water use issues) so the wetland populations are crashing while the urban populations are exploding.

I think, the bin chicken has to be a symbol of luck. It is so insane to me that the human-designed environment ended up being an ibis paradise, where we've systematically murdered all their enemies and established abundant self-replenishing food sources that they and only them can access.

May you be as lucky as the Australian white ibis. May you leave your normal life for foreign shores and face not the expected adversity, but instead abundance and safety beyond your wildest dreams.

Everyone always talks about "You Cannot Have My Pain," and with good reason, but I think this is my favourite Dalinar moment

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”

— Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

Absolutely cursed. I'm just glad they didn't include a picture of an aye-aye picking its nose in the wild. That long finger disappearing between those massive eyes to tickle its little brain would give me enough nightmares to last my lifetime and many years after I'm dead and buried. I really hope I forget about this post instead of remembering it every time I see an otherwise adorable aye-aye.

What aye-aye nose picking research paper

Just my favorite scientific rendering of all time