Ibi, you buy, we all buy an Ibi.

This sunny winter morn, Hazel and I took a spin down to Rockingham.

We like Rockingham, with its Penguin Island, giant wheat silos and assorted poms.

Unfortunately, we always take the coastal route down through the Australian Marine Complex and past a dead gum tree upon whose wizened branches, a year or so ago, Hazel saw a scimitar of ibises a-perching.

At that time, she implored me to pull over so she could take a snap of the grimey gum grippers. Rather craftily, I told her we were running late and that she could snap them on the way back.

Of course, on driving back past the Henderson Motocross track then up to the dead Eucalyptus, there wasn't an ibis to be seen.

On the 58 occasions we've zoomed by since, we've failed to spy one, let alone the erstwhile scimitar, of ibises in the bloody tree.

Good ol' Haze misses nary an opportunity to remind me how I cost her her once-in-a-lifetime photograph. Her place in the sun. Her Pulitzer.

Which is why, on the way home from Rocko this morning, I was very relieved to see the manky sight above.