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IBIS - that bald-headed, hook-nosed, long-beaked god of the Pharaohs - long considered extinct, has now returned to life, like the Phoenix.
Once revered by the ancient Egyptians as Thoth, the god of writing, wisdom, and knowledge, it roamed the skies of Southern Europe and the Middle East in their thousands.
Extinct for 400 years in Europe, not seen in the Middle East in nearly a century, killed by poachers and pesticides, a few have now been found in Syria and Morocco.
This red-beaked bird with piercing yellow eyes and punk-rock plumage, its bones mummified in the temples of the ancient gods, today is being tracked by radar and satellite, to see where it breeds and migrates.
Now classified as "critically endangered", Ibis fly over Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Yemen, threatened by shot and shell in the Mid-East conflicts.
The countries where once they roamed were mostly forest, today are mostly sand and stone and vistas of asphalt, tar, and concrete.
I can imagine the pharaohs in heaven, looking down, and singing: "Where have all the Ibis gone, long-time a-roaming. Where have all the forests gone, long-time a-dying. Killed by shot and shell, long gone to Western hell…"
You’ll find their slender, mummified bones in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
Go there, and drop a tear.
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