Australian Ibis

Threskiornis molucca

The Australian white ibis, commonly known as the bin chicken, is a wading bird of the family Threskiornithidae. It is widespread across much of Australia. It has a predominantly white plumage with a bare, black head, long downcurved bill, and black legs. While it is closely related to the African sacred ibis, the Australian white ibis is a native Australian bird. Contrary to urban myth, it is not a feral species introduced to Australia by people, and it does not come from Egypt. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 163,985 times across 18 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 27°C (typically 22 to 28°C, from 6 areas). That holds across 25° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in Oceania ranged from 35°S in October to 16°S in July, about 2,100 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.