it’s seldom difficult to tell when a party of grey-crowned babblers is in the vicinity. Their scolding, whistling and chattering calls readily give their presence away, but their most well-known call is a distinctive ‘ya-hoo’, given as a duet by pairs of birds –the female gives a harsh ‘ya’ and the male responds with a high-pitched ‘hoo’, though given the precise timing it sounds as though the call was given by a single bird. Top Photo: Chris Tzaros/BirdLife Australia
“Now, for the next photo, everyone do your silly pose!”
“The concept of fire-foraging birds is well established. Raptors on at least four continents have been observed for decades on the edge of big flames, waiting out scurrying rodents and reptiles or picking through their barbecued remains.
“What’s new, at least in the academic literature, is the idea that birds might be intentionally spreading fires themselves. If true, the finding suggests that birds, like humans, have learned to use fire as a tool and as a weapon.
“Gosford, a lawyer turned ethno-ornithologist (he studies the relationship between aboriginal peoples and birds), has been chasing the arson hawk story for years. ‘My interest was first piqued by a report in a book published in 1964 by an Aboriginal man called Phillip Roberts in the Roper River area in the Northern Territory, that gave an account of a thing that he’d seen in the bush, a bird picking up a stick from a fire front and carrying it and dropping it on to unburnt grass,’ he told ABC.”
I regret to inform you all that Prometheus is at it again.
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