Ibises have large wingspans but often fall from the trees where they make their nests.
At a vet clinic in Sydney's inner west, a juvenile ibis that couldn't walk has been brought in after doing just that. Scans reveal he's lucky to be alive.
"He was bleeding a little bit from one wing and he had a broken feather," vet Lydia Brichta said.
"If the feathers are broken off short, then they'll bleed and they'll keep bleeding as long as the feather is there.
"It's sort of almost like a needle into a vein, so we have to pull that out."
Sydney's iconic ibises are some of the most hurt animals in the city and need your help, according to wildlife rescue charity WIRES.
More than 2,000 calls for assistance were made to WIRES for ibises last year, many for vehicle strikes, entanglements and for chicks that fell out of their trees.
Waterbird specialist and WIRES volunteer Daphne Turner has arrived at the Summer Hill clinic to take the bird to be cared for by another volunteer.
Ms Turner began volunteering 20 years ago, prompted by her daughter who was studying animal science. She's since dealt with hundreds of birds, such as one elusive ibis who had a broken leg sticking out to the side.
"We spent three days going back to the area where the ibis was," Ms Turner said.
"Eventually we succeeded, brought the ibis into the vet and the leg was splinted.
"Once the splint was removed, it was released back into the wild."
WIRES is looking to recruit more volunteers like Ms Turner to help with ibis call-outs.
Battling the urban elements
Dr Brichta says they will sometimes see several ibises a week, often not surviving; usually they've fallen out of a tree, but sometimes they are too weak from illness or have a calcium deficiency.
Their "dodgy diet" might come down to an over-dependence on scavenging food in bins, a common sight in the city and origin of their "bin chicken" moniker.
"Garbage bins are not a good diet for birds," Dr Brichta said.
Most ibis call-outs to WIRES are for vehicle strikes. Bird expert Gráinne Cleary says this comes down to them being heavy birds that can't take off fast enough to get away from cars.
"It takes time for them to actually gain height when they take off," Dr Cleary said.
"When they're crossing a road or they're crossing a heavily populated area, they can get hit by a car fairly easily."
Ibises also fall out of palm trees where they like to roost in order to easily spot predators like foxes and dogs.
Sometimes palm trees are destroyed while chicks are still living in nests. One incident last year prompted 124 calls because palm trees were removed from Bankstown station while nests were full of chicks.
WIRES says most of the chicks did not survive the incident, which required assistance from volunteers from as far away as the Hawkesbury.
How do you become a bird carer?
WIRES avian specialist Inga Tiere says the organisation hosts an online course and a day of practical training.
Following the training, carers do rescues and care for animals under the supervision of a bird coordinator.
In this training they learn the dietary requirements of birds and how to handle them to avoid zoonotic diseases.
"The main thing is to not treat them like they are a pet," Ms Tiere said.
Ibis the catalyst for WIRES
The discovery of an injured ibis in Sydney's Hyde Park in 1982 led to the foundation of WIRES.
Mikla Lewis was working for Animal Liberation when it received the call for help. The caller was told Animal Liberation didn't do animal rescues and to contact the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Subsequently, National Parks suggested to Animal Liberation that it set up an animal rescue. When its committee decided against the idea, Ms Lewis went about founding the service which launched as WIRES in 1986.
"I said, 'Well, I'm going to. I'm going to do it'," she said.
Ms Lewis says the birds don't deserve their "bin chicken" reputation for being city scavengers.
"We've taken over their habitat to build our houses and they're trying to adapt.
"Out here [in the country] they have another name, which is the farmer's friend.
"It's because they have a reputation for consuming vast amounts of insects."
An icon of resilience
When Dr Cleary arrived in Sydney from Ireland in 2008, she was taken aback by the sight of an ibis in Darling Harbour.
"I remember looking at it thinking, how the hell is that bird surviving in an urban area?" she said.
The bird doesn't have a long history of being an urban species, having only been introduced to inner Sydney by Taronga Zoo in the early 1970s.
Dr Cleary says ibises should be celebrated as an Australian icon of resilience who "never say die".
"We destroyed their habitat, so they adapted to our habitat.
"Stop judging a book by its cover. Just because it's ugly doesn't mean it doesn't have a good heart."
