Behold, the trash chicken: the bane of outdoor dining Down Under, a toxic tormentor of children's playgrounds and the villain of birds everywhere — at least in the eyes of many here.
“They are a pest,” Akume said after the perpetrator was expelled. “I don't know anyone who likes them.”
However, some Australians adore the dumpster chicken, whose real name – the white ibis – has been overshadowed by its dumpster-diving name.
From Brisbane to Melbourne – but especially in Sydney – Ben's hens are now everywhere. Driven from their natural wetlands, their numbers in urban areas have soared in recent years, leading to growing dissatisfaction with the birds.
But the creature also has a cult following. No trendy neighborhood is complete without a Chicken Ben mural. Ben's chicken tattoo is now as easy to spot as the bird itself. Many children's books are devoted to hard-hit species. There are also efforts to make it the mascot for the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane.
At the same time, its resilience has made it an icon for immigrants, an icon for the LGBTQ+ community and a favorite of ornithologists.
“People don't appreciate the noise, the smell and the sight of bin chickens,” said John Martin, an ecologist and bird expert in Sydney. “They miss the idea that this is a unique species. They live with us in our urban environment. They have adapted.”
Martin calls them the winged equivalent of the “Aussie fighter” or everyday hero. “They just get on with it,” he said.
However, the question is whether they will handle things very well.
Australians are spoiled with beautiful birds: the resplendent rainbow lorikeet is ubiquitous. The same applies to the sulfur-crested cockatoo. Drive through the backcountry, and you may not see a human for days, but you'll be surrounded by magnificent green macaws and shy pink galahs.
But the white ibis is not one of them.
In ancient Egypt, the ibis was worshiped as the incarnation of the god of wisdom and magic. Their mummies were found in Egyptian tombs. Herodotus wrote that if someone was killed, “there is no alternative but to kill the offender.”
The Australian white ibis is a close relative of the Egyptian variety. Its scientific name, Thriscurnis Moluccacomes from the Greek words threskos (sacred) and ornis (bird).
But that's as sacred as Ben's chicken. With its long limbs, wrinkled black head and beady eyes, this bird is not your typical Audubon calendar. Any color on their feathers likely comes from the litter.
Her nicknames are no longer glamorous: Dump of Thorns, Turkey Tip, Garbage Goose. Some call it the Bankstown flamingo after the Sydney suburb where the birds first invaded a quarter of a century ago, when drought – and poor environmental planning – drove them out of their native wetlands in western New South Wales.
Surprisingly, the birds flourished. Instead of rural wetlands, they began inhabiting inner-city reservoirs, irrigation canals, and even non-native palm trees. Instead of snakes, fish, and frogs, they began using their long legs and beaks to raid landfills, garbage cans, and picnics for French fries and other foods they wouldn't normally consume.
Chicken Ben was born – and he was born and he was born.
Unlike wetlands, where white ibises flock after heavy rains to breed for a few months, Sydney's carb hens mate year-round, Martin said.
By 2003, about 1,000 birds had settled in Bankstown, destroying plants and disturbing residents. The local council hired an exterminator to shoot them, but it made little difference. Two decades later, the suburb is still struggling to control the chicken boxes, which number between 1,600 and 2,800 in multiple locations, officials say.
Culling ibises is now less common than oiling their eggs to prevent them from hatching. Like other native species, the birds are protected in New South Wales: killing them requires a permit, although that has not stopped occasional attempts to cook them.
Unlike Brisbane, Sydney has not adopted a city-wide plan to manage its chicken populations, Martin said. As a result, a suburb will sometimes displace a colony just to push it into the neighborhood.
However, it's hard to blame the unfortunate souls who suddenly find themselves fighting a brood of chickens.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tamara and Brett Yandell fled their home in central Sydney to stay with relatives on the coast. When they returned a few months later, they discovered that dozens of litter chickens had roosted in nearby gum trees. The roof and sides of their house were covered in white, foul-smelling excrement.
“Their poop is huge,” Tamara said. “You can actually hear them hitting the ground.”
When the council couldn't do anything, the Yandells took matters into their own hands. At first, Brett tried shooting a football at the branches to scatter the birds, but in this chicken bin game, the birds barely flinched. He now heads out every evening with a black contraption the size of a sawed-off shotgun. But instead of bullets, they fire red and green lasers that disturb the birds.
“People in the neighborhood think we're a little weird,” Tamara said with a laugh.
In fact, Ben Chicken horror stories are common here. At a pre-school in Sydney, so many sat on the roof that it looked like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The playground was completely littered with ibises, causing the school to worry that the children might be infected with salmonella.
There's no denying that, Martin said. With all their virtues, the white ibis smells great, especially when mating. It doesn't matter whether they are scavenging divers or snow-white wetland specimens.
“They literally stink,” he said.
A few years ago, when Sydney's LGBTQ+ community sports league needed a Mardi Gras uniform, someone had an idea. “Ben the chicken,” Jamar Mills recalled. “But chicken Ben is hot.”
Like many in the Emerald City Kickball League, Mills is an American plant. The chicken box seemed like an appropriate symbol.
“It's a creature that looks a little out of place,” said the Maryland native, who is chief brand officer for the Emerald City. “People look at it and think: What is this weird thing doing here?” But ultimately they appreciate what it adds to the environment.
In March of 2021, Mills and other shirtless footballers donned bean chicken caps and embroidered wings to parade around the Sydney Cricket Ground. This year they plan to illustrate Mardi Gras attire.
“There's something really interesting and beautiful and strange about this bird, which is that it's able to find joy in things that other people throw away,” he said.
The hen hen may be widely disliked, with songs and fake documentaries parodying it. But this lower bird position also adds to its appeal.
Sydney and Melbourne have murals of dumpster divers. Chicken merchandise flies off the shelf. And the tattoo artist has inked at least one Raptor litter. When a sculptor recently placed chickens in bins around Brisbane – with cigarettes in their beaks and beer in their claws – the artworks were so popular that some were stolen.
The birds also serve as a reminder of the impact of urbanization and the need to coexist with wildlife, Martin said.
After losing half of her lunch in Centennial Park, Lisa Akomi didn't feel like living with her perpetrator.
“You used to see them in the parks,” she said of the ibises. “But now they're on suburban streets, in your yard. They're everywhere.”
Nearby, Chicken Ben was busy ransacking a trash can while a young child tried to catch one of his buddies. In the distance, dozens of birds surrounded the picnic table where Brian Zhang and his family were eating.
“We don't mind them,” Zhang said as an ibis approached. “You just need to take care of your food.”
