‘Bin chicken’ set to be Australia’s 2017 bird of the year

VOTING is underway to crown Australia’s 2017 Bird of the Year and one dumpster diving, bin-juice loving competitor is the unlikely frontrunner.

AUSTRALIAN’S have been asked to vote for their favourite bird of 2017 and there is an unlikely frontrunner.

The Australian white ibis, known by many as a “bin chicken” or even “trash turkey”, is currently sitting in the top position to become the nation’s favourite bird of the year.

Most people know the ibis as the creepy bird that always seems to hang out around public dumpsters and stare into your soul with their black, beady eyes while gobbling up your scraps.

The majestic bin chicken, aka ibis, tucking into some lunch at Sydney’s Hyde Park.

When much of their natural wetland habitat was destroyed, many ibises were forced to adapt to city life, resulting in bin juice becoming an integral part of their diet.

Despite all of this, the ibis is far surpassing any other native bird in popularity even the likes of the wedge-tailed eagle, cockatoo and king parrot don’t stand a chance against the mighty bin chicken.

Vote 1 the White Ibis: an elegant bird, a great survivor, displaced by humans only to turn out to be better at city life than we are.

— Juniper Bunnett (@Jen_Bennett) 20 November 2017

I'm backing the ibis. The ibis is the perfect bird embodiment of Twitter - it revels in trash, it thrives in rubbish, garbage gives strength to the ibis while it would kill others. The bin chicken is all of us. Change the Twitter bird logo to be an ibis. You know it makes sense

— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) 20 November 2017

And if you were hoping for at least a solid runner-up to compete with this garbage-loving bird, well, think again because the magpie has come swooping into second place.

Number three is a bit of a step-up with the kookaburra but not everyone enjoys the early morning wake-up call to their “laughter”.

The ibis is currently sitting on 11,313 votes, the magpie is on 6739 and the kookaburra is not too far behind on 5645.

The 2017 Bird of the Year poll was created by The Guardian in conjunction with BirdLife Australia as a way to remind the public about the importance of protecting our native species.

The poll is open until December 9 and you only get one vote, so use it wisely.

As the votes stand it seems likely that we will soon be raising a nice, warm glass of bin juice in celebration of our favourite Aussie bird of 2017: The bin chicken.

Despite its bad wrap, the Australian public seem to still have a soft spot for the dumpster-diving bird.