In which our hero makes a new friend .... sort of ...
If you'll recall, dear reader, a while back I mentioned seeing a sort of skinny black chicken thing near the marsh area by the train station/shopping centre. I attempted to take it's picture, but it scarpered pretty quick, so it's just an indecipherable black shape near a fence.
In recent weeks there had been a couple of developments to that story. One is that I was in the Uni Bookshop last week and I noticed a book called 'Wildlife of the Greater Brisbane Area' or something to that effect. So I flipped to the birds bit, and looked through the pictures, and found the skinny black chicken thing, and it turns out it's called a Purple Swamp Hen. So I was fairly happy with finally having cracked that mystery.
Then, yesterday, I was walking past the library, and on the patch of grass nearby was a skinny black chicken thing. Bit random. I wasn't aware of there being nearby wetlands, but OK. Whatever. Maybe it had just gone for a wander.
Then on my way back, like ten minutes later, it was still there. So I took some pictures, and as I was taking them it came right up to me. It was awfully friendly for a wild creature, or perhaps just very trusting. I've heard that was the problem with the Dodo. It didn't know enough so be afraid of people, so they all got killed because they were too trusting. Hopefully this chicken thing meets a happier fate. It was also still there as I was walking to the bus stop from my Skeptics Club meeting, which was at like 7 p.m.
So here's some pictures. You can see the bit of purplish/bluish that gives it it's name. Also, its toes are like twice the length of a normal chicken.
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