Ibis

Ibis
Originally uploaded by Broken Piggy Bank.

When I lived in Australia, our apartment was 3 blocks away from the Brisbane River which winds its way thru the heart of Brisbane. Along the south bank of the river is a spectacular promenade with shops, a cinema, restaurants, a Griffith University satellite campus, the convention centre, and theatres. This locale is called "Southbank", in true Aussie "straight-to-the-point" style. Well, a constant "pest" of Southbank is the ibis.

http://www.south-bank.net.au/

There are hundreds of ibis that hover around the Southbank restaurants for discarded scraps of food. Think grackles, seagulls, and pigeons. In fact, there are "Please do not feed the ibis" signs posted all around Southbank. I, on the other hand, find them beautiful. Fast forward from when I left Australia (Apr 2004) to five months later. Much to my surprise while visiting the San Antonio Zoo last September, I found heaps of ibis in the aviary.