TIP TURKEY INVASION TURNS POINT PIPER ON ITS HEAD

By Rupert Truscott-Hughes on June 12, 2017 in Other

Point Piper, home to our prime minister, ‘Aussie’ John Symonds, Frank Lowy, and yours truly, is now home to another renowned Australian: the white ibis.

Better known these days as the common bin chicken or the terrestrial tip turkey, the Australian white ibis has been causing quite a stir throughout the harbour city, but nowhere more so than in the 2027 postcode.

As there is no shopping strip in Point Piper, and hence very few accessible rubbish bins, it has until recently remained one of the few places in the city where the horrendously ugly fowl haven’t flocked en masse.

This has been a point of much pride for many residents of ‘the Point’, and it has also helped attract new buyers to the pricey suburb.

Atlassian founder Scott Farquharson recently paid a handsome 70 million dollars for a dilapidated mansion in Point Piper, and was overheard telling his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes that the reason he purchased there as opposed to picking up Channel 7 boss David Leckie’s lavish Lang Road abode was that he found its proximity to the ibis-infested Centennial Park unappealing.

Little did Farquharson know that the much maligned birds were already planning their own move into the prestigious peninsula, attracted by the refuse left at Duff Reserve by thoughtless Instagrammers picnicking and seeking the perfect ‘sunset behind the Harbour Bridge’ shot.

Some residents believe that a disgruntled former Point Piper resident may be responsible for introducing the belligerent birds in order to drive down property prices and get a foot back in the exclusive market. Others believe that ibis are the new Illuminati and they’ve come to seek vengeance on the many lizard people who call Point Piper home.

Not since Salim Mehajer threatened to move into the neighbourhood have residents shown such great concern about a new arrival.

An action group has been set up to deal with the influx of ibises before they reach the plague proportions seen in other Sydney suburbs.

Some residents have suggested an annual ibis hunt, which will allow them to dust off their antique rifles and don the shooting jackets and flat caps that they often flit about in while targeting clays at their weekenders in the Southern Highlands.

A few of the suburb’s more entrepreneurial residents have suggested putting some land aside – possibly Farquharson’s crumbling pile – to farm the unflappable scavengers, and selling their meat to the Plumer Road Chicken Shop to use in their delicious burgers.

At this stage a workable solution seems unlikely any time soon. At present the many security contractors that continuously circle Point Piper’s streets have been tasked not only with guarding the wealthy elite from ‘baddies’, but also searching for and eradicating any intruding ibises. The rest of their time will, as per usual, be spent sitting inside their vehicles listening to the radio or calling friends and relatives.

As a resident myself, I am shocked that it has come to this. If ever there was a time for the prime minister to make a ‘captain’s call’, surely it is now. If ibises are allowed to take up residence in our exclusive suburb, what will be next?