As I said before, if this kind of behavior were -- I hate to say 'confirmed' because we get into some sticky language -- but at least acceptable to Western fire ecology , I think we could have a pretty important paper in the works. I suspect that without independent confirmation of the behavior (a video would be ideal) many geographers and environmental scientists would not take it seriously. Bob -- do you think it's possible to get hard and fast documentation of this practice?
I am relatively well aware of the literature on fire, at least from the 90s, and I don't recall this behavior ever being mentioned. I have a very good sense of what would tend to become very important to geographers, which is why I've latched onto this. I think millennia of kites setting purposeful fires would force us to rethink our assumptions that pyrophytic landscapes over such great expanses are solely due to 10K or more years of human effort.
I'm still trying to track down the reference to the NT Aboriginal group that related the movement of the firehawk's legs while it was flying over burns, to the way that people make fires.
Associate Professor of Geography
Division of Social Sciences
Kethley 226, PO Box 3264
Delta State University
Cleveland, MS 38733
Tel. 662.846.4096 [w]; 843.6205 [h]; Fax: 662.846.4099
Alternate email: mbonta@...
From: Heather Teague <yodaseablue@...>
To: Ethnoornithology@...; mtw30@...
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 11:52:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Ethnoornithology] Re: Firebirds!?
Author(s): Ashley Montagu
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jun., 1970), p. 610
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor. org/stable/ 673006
Accessed: 11/05/2009 12:34
A REMARKABLE CASE OF TOOL-USING IN A BIRD
ASHLEY MONTAGU
Princeton, N.J.
Accepted for publication 18 February 1970.
To the growing list of tool-users among animals other than man should be added the Northern Territory kitehawk or, as he is called among the aborigines of that part of Australia, the firehawk. In the fascinating book about his life, I, The Aboriginal (Ade- laide: Griffin, 1962), written down by Douglas Lockwood, Waipuldanya, an abori- ginal of the Alawa tribe at Roper River, says, "I have seen a hawk pick up a smoul- dering stick in its claws and drop it in a fresh patch of dry grass half a mile away, then wait with its mates for the mad exodus of scorched and frightened rodents and rep- tiles. When that area was burnt out the pro- cess was repeated elsewhere. We call these fires Jaluran" (p. 93). Is this, possibly, the first recorded case of the use of fire by a nonhuman animal?
From: Mark Bonta <markabonta@yahoo. com>
To: Ethnoornithology@ yahoogroups. co.uk; mtw30@.... uk
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 11:06:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Ethnoornithology] Re: Firebirds!?
http://www.jstor. org/pss/673006
- A Remarkable Case of Tool-Using in a Bird
-
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jun., 1970), p. 610
(article consists of 1 page) - Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
- Stable URL: http://www.jstor. org/stable/ 673006
Associate Professor of Geography
Division of Social Sciences
Kethley 226, PO Box 3264
Delta State University
Cleveland, MS 38733
Tel. 662.846.4096 [w]; 843.6205 [h]; Fax: 662.846.4099
Alternate email: mbonta@deltastate. edu
From: martin_t_walsh <mtw30@.... uk>
To: Ethnoornithology@ yahoogroups. co.uk
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 3:28:07 AM
Subject: [Ethnoornithology] Re: Firebirds!?
Mark, I can't see any statement like that in Birds of my Kalam Country. Here's the paragraph about Black Kites (square brackets in the original; the /n/ of anmt is a velar nasal that I can't reproduce here):
"Anmt or kob-bg-ket [the Black Kite, Milvus migrans] is another bird which hunts in the open country and the gardens, taking rats and snakes and worms from the ground. It is dark brown, partly black on the under-surface of its wings. I can't translate anmt, but kob-bg-ket means 'it haunts the burnt-off grassland'. When large areas of grass are burnt, this bird sometimes appears and catches small animals as they try to escape from the fire, and picks up dead creatures that the fire has left." (Majnep and Bulmer 1977: 144)
That's all there is in the text about the behaviour of Black Kites (and nothing like it in descriptions of other raptors, not that I can see with a
quick scan).
Martin
--- In Ethnoornithology@ yahoogroups. co.uk, Mark Bonta <markabonta@. ..> wrote:
>
> I saw a ref online to Birds of My Kalem Country, where the kite was linked to fire not only because it swooped around active burns, but also the way it moved its legs/talons appeared like the movements humans start to make fire. Can you check that (I don't have access to the book)?
>
> mb
>
> Dr. Mark Bonta
> Associate Professor of Geography
> Division of Social Sciences
> Kethley 226, PO Box 3264
> Delta State University
> Cleveland, MS 38733
> Tel. 662.846.4096 [w]; 843.6205 [h]; Fax: 662.846.4099
> Alternate email: mbonta@...
>
>
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