A little Chinese mystery solved

We visited the Chinese Gardens in Darling Harbour yesterday and, amidst the calm vistas and feeding-fish, noticed that there was a long pole with a rotating pyramid on top of it. We came up with several theories as to what it was, none of which we got right. Then we noticed a second one of them on one of the buildings and had to ask what they were. “They’re to scare off the ibises” we were told.

A bit of research reveals that they appear to be from Eagle Eye Bird Control whose website says, “The Eagle Eye’s reflective pyramid rotates via an electric motor, sending the beams around in a menacing pattern. The light spectrum reflected back by the Eagle Eye disorients birds in flight by limiting their vision significantly. This causes the bird to deviate in flight and fly to another destination.”

There may well be some strange irony, given how the birds were venerated by the Egyptians, in a pyramid being used to scare off the ibis.