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It has been known for some time that certain birds of prey tend to congregate near wildfires. Most animals flee from fire, and that’s why the birds are there. After all, the fire is essentially flushing small animals out of the underbrush, making them easy prey for the birds. Now it’s not all that surprising for birds to notice the abundance of easy prey near a fire and eventually figure out that there is an association between fire and prey. However, the authors of this study confirmed something that Aboriginal Australians had known for quite some time – birds actually spread the fires to get even more prey!
This “fire spreading” has been depicted in sacred rituals of the Aboriginal Australians, but many non-Aboriginals have expressed skepticism. As a result, the authors of the study decided to conduct detailed interviews with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to see if they could both confirm the behavior and figure out a pattern to it. Two of them (Ferguson and Eussen) also reviewed their own observations over years of field work in Australia. Based on the interviews and those observations, a pattern emerged.
These three species of bird will grab a smoldering object from one fire and then fly to an area where there isn’t any fire. They will then drop the object, attempting to start another fire there. Not only will they take smoldering objects from forest fires, they have been observed stealing from campfires as well! This is not only done on an individual basis, but sometimes the birds work together so that more fire can be spread.
The authors indicate that this behavior can be an important consideration for managing both controlled burns as well as wildfires. After all, if you build a firebreak in order to stop a fire, a bird might end up helping the fire jump that firebreak. They plan to do another study with rangers who will set up controlled burns so that they can observe (and hopefully better document) this behavior.
Of course, this study applies only to Australian birds of prey (and so far, only three specific species). However, you have to wonder how widespread this behavior is. Could it be that birds are helping to spread Californian wildfires? How would firefighters take this into account? Perhaps the authors of this study (and other scientists) will get to know the birds’ behavior well enough for such questions to be answered.
For me, there are two other important takeaways from this study. First, it further illustrates just how intelligent birds are. Second, it tells us that we shouldn’t automatically dismiss the tales told in sacred rituals. Had people not dismissed the fire-spreading behavior of birds depicted in Aboriginal rituals, we would probably already know a lot more about this amazing phenomenon!
Wow… That’s insane!
I think they can tell time also – at least seagulls can. They’d line up around the picnic benches at school 20 min before lunch everyday. : )
That’s cool, but other animals do that as well. They are pretty savvy about time of day from sunlight and other cues. My uncle had a dog who would get up early and want out, then come back home and want in, sleep a good fraction of the day, and want out again around 3. He would then come back around 4. Turns out he had figured out when kids started arriving at the local school and when school let out, so he would go there at those times and play with the kids.
Haha… That’s awesome. I need a dog. ☺️
Haha, I think Smokey the Bear needs to have a talk with these birds!
No place on earth is as innovative as Australia, even the animals are in on the game. Let us hope that their entrepreneurial skills are far in excess of the Australian human population though. In that area, we are below most other countries.
I wanted to point out that, contrary to popular belief, forest fires are actually beneficial to the ecosystem:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/how-forest-fire-benefit-living-things-2.htm
I remember attending a presentation years ago in which the speaker said that forest fires were necessary for the growth of young willow trees, which are essential to a moose’s diet, and that they were planning to do controlled burning in order to strengthen the moose population.
I think the fact that these birds spread forest fires is a testament to the fact that forest fires are beneficial.
Then again, nobody likes breathing heaps of smoke during the summer months. I remember some summers we had with forest fires when the sky was so smokey, the sun was red and you could look directly at it.
Good points, Alaska!