Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, was represented by the ibis.

Glad he included the bit about Seagulls being scabbier than the Ibis.

I went to Oz on my honeymoon, and we were wandering around the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane. Everywhere were these odd birds; we thought they were drawn to the trees and other plants of the Botanical Garden. We came to realize they were mostly there for the rubbish, primarily by the signs asking people to not feed the ibises.
"Interesting," we said, "they have ibises instead of pigeons. That's kind of cool."
Later that day, we met up with an ex-pat friend of mine. We told him about how we thought the ibises in lieu of pigeons were neat. "I don't know if it's their bald heads or what, but they're dirtier than pigeons," my friend said.
His buddy, a native Australian, then proceeded to vituperate about how awful ibises are, and how every opportunity he gets, he tries to kick them. Apparently he'd connected on one that had its head in a Macca's bag and sent it flying across the pavement; this was one of his proudest achievements.

So this apparently is not an isolated sentiment.