So: Many experts now agree ... some birds use fire as a weapon.

[dann]

Interesting article about Denmark's one and only cryptozoologist:

My translation:

Meningerne var delte, selv om alle huskede stopskiltet. Og det viste sig, at alle tog fejl. For der var slet ikke noget stopskilt i filmen. Så nemt er det at vildlede menneskets hukommelse.

Some years ago, a very simple study of the memory of humans was conducted in England. A grout of volunteers watched a short film recorded through the windows of a small car, which was driving on the roads in a quiet and relaxed way. At one point, the car leaves the road and hits a tree. The End.
"Was the stop sign placed before or after the white farm house?" some of the test subjects were later asked.
They had various opinions, but everybody remembered the stop sign. As it turned out, they were all wrong. There was no stopping in the film. This is how easy it is to misdirect the memory of human beings.

Lars Thomas, the only cryptozoologist in Denmark, tells us the story. He is talking about his job as a cryptozoologist and about often not having anything other than eyewitness reports on which to base his work, which makes him much too familiar with deficient thinking.
"On very rare occasions, you have something you can analyze, maybe a few strains of hair or bitemarks in a tree," he says exhausted.
- It almost sounds as if you are dismissing the substance of your own field ...
"Yes, in a way. When much of it is based on eyewitness accounts, much of it s also uncertain. Eyewitness accounts alone are basically worthless."
(...)
We should mention that Lars Thomas thinks there's a natural explanation of it all. He mentions the case of the Exmoor monster, a horrifying creature with big, luminous eyes, which for several years scare the hell out of South-Western English farmers and killed their sheep. In 1990, Lars Thomas organized an expedition of seven men to the region, and when they found a sample of the animal's hair, the case had been solved: The monster was a cougar.
No office for the cryptozoologist (Information, Feb 14, 2003)

 

[dann]

Interesting article about Denmark's one and only cryptozoologist:

My translation:

He mentions the case of the Exmoor monster, (...) the case had been solved: The monster was a cougar.

Or maybe not ... Wikipedia doesn't seem to have heard of the Danish cryptologist's claims: Beast of Exmoor

 

[angrysoba]

Strange as it may seem to you, this is not so far away from how a real police report would proceed. Police get inundated by exaggerated, malicious and utterly false reports. They do not immediately accept the veracity of all reports. They certainly do not accept licence plates without checking that the number given matched the car model. It’s only where they accept the truth of the report that they take action.

I have personal experience of this. I was at a motor mechanic’s workshop a couple of years ago where two staff were having an argument. One hopped into a car and reversed it over the other man. It looked to me like it was deliberate, so I reported it. The police asked how I knew it was deliberate, so in mentioned the argument. They said they would call the mechanic.

Later that day I got a call from the owner who apologised for what I witnessed, and explained how distressed the driver was and that no damage was done. The police also rang and confirmed it was an accident.

My eyewitness evidence was so faulty as to be useless. I saw something (the argument) and drew a wrong conclusion. I’m sure the “firebird” witnesses have done the same.

Indeed. This is a good example of what Daniel Kahnemann refers to as the narrative fallacy (I think - I may be misremembering it ) in which he talks about how people layer their own interpretations of events to tell a story that makes sense to us. In fact, contrary to what smartcooky claims, car accidents are pretty much the canonical example of memory research with people making up all kinds of details that turn out to be untrue. We also see people misinterpreting animal intentions all the times, with things like the Clever Hans example etc...

 

[Chanakya]

Strange as it may seem to you, this is not so far away from how a real police report would proceed. Police get inundated by exaggerated, malicious and utterly false reports. They do not immediately accept the veracity of all reports. They certainly do not accept licence plates without checking that the number given matched the car model. It’s only where they accept the truth of the report that they take action.

I have personal experience of this. I was at a motor mechanic’s workshop a couple of years ago where two staff were having an argument. One hopped into a car and reversed it over the other man. It looked to me like it was deliberate, so I reported it. The police asked how I knew it was deliberate, so in mentioned the argument. They said they would call the mechanic.

Later that day I got a call from the owner who apologised for what I witnessed, and explained how distressed the driver was and that no damage was done. The police also rang and confirmed it was an accident.

My eyewitness evidence was so faulty as to be useless. I saw something (the argument) and drew a wrong conclusion. I’m sure the “firebird” witnesses have done the same.

Not taking sides in the underlying argument, the bird thing, I've made my take on this clear already --- that these accounts don't warrant either dismissal, or acceptance, but are clear grounds for serious investigation, urgent investigation --- but as far as the above, it could be, given no damage was done, they were covering up for a client, or a friend, to prevent trouble and bother and awkwardness and loss of business, maybe genuine concern for the the guy who lost his temper but was a friend after all. I'm saying, don't be so sure, basis just that much, that you were mistaken.


ETA: Not suggesting that's what happened. Likely enough you were mistaken in what you thought you saw; but not all that implausible, even if I suppose a tad less likely, that you were right after all.

 

[lionking]

Not taking sides in the underlying argument, the bird thing, I've made my take on this clear already --- that these accounts don't warrant either dismissal, or acceptance, but are clear grounds for serious investigation, urgent investigation --- but as far as the above, it could be, given no damage was done, they were covering up for a client, or a friend, to prevent trouble and bother and awkwardness and loss of business, maybe genuine concern for the the guy who lost his temper but was a friend after all. I'm saying, don't be so sure, basis just that much, that you were mistaken.


ETA: Not suggesting that's what happened. Likely enough you were mistaken in what you thought you saw; but not all that implausible, even if I suppose a tad less likely, that you were right after all.

At the expense of veering off topic, the person run over would need to be part of the cover up, which I think unlikely. What is more likely is I reacted in the emotion of the moment when I called the police and their cool heads prevailed.

 

[angrysoba]

FFS will you please learn to read and understand what is said, and stop putting your own personal spin on the words of others.

I repeat (again) what I have said several times:

I am still not 100% convinced that birds really are purposefully picking up burning twigs and dropping them in new areas to start new fires. Nonetheless, unlike you, my mind is open to the possibility because such behaviour would be well within the known ranges of behaviour of the more "intelligent" tool making/using birds such as raptors, corvids and psittadids. There are witnesses to this happening, dozens of them over many years - not just ordinary members of the public, but rangers, firefighters and animal behaviorists.​

"possibility"!!!!

SO the correct characterization of this statement is

"eye-witness testimony is sufficient evidence to establish that birds might be using burning twigs as tools to spread fires."

Your bailey collapses immediately therefore your mottes have no further relevance.



Do I really have to explain grade-school concepts to you? Really?

In this context it means you should trust that a person is acting in good faith when they report what they have seen. Do not dismiss what they are saying merely because you personally doubt their story.

The question is not whether they are acting in good faith or not. Who is saying the person is lying? The question is whether the evidence is good or not. The evidence is in fact pretty weak.

 

[Chanakya]

At the expense of veering off topic, the person run over would need to be part of the cover up, which I think unlikely. What is more likely is I reacted in the emotion of the moment when I called the police and their cool heads prevailed.

But if no complaint is made, then the other guy doesn't even come into the picture, as far as the police. No need to coach him or anything. And just to be safe, a phone call would do --- if anything the friend/client would likely be appreciative/grateful, and more than happy to go along.

Agreed, this is OT. Also agreed, it is more likely you were mistaken then, just that this possibility is also ...possible, and even plausible.

And again, not taking sides on the underlying issue. See my previous post.

 

[angrysoba]

SO the correct characterization of this statement is

"eye-witness testimony is sufficient evidence to establish that birds might be using burning twigs as tools to spread fires."

So they might be using burning twigs as tools to spread fires.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.

I guess we'll never know.

Or....could we know?

Anyone got any idea how we could possibly establish this? Anybody at all?

 

[smartcooky]

So they might be using burning twigs as tools to spread fires.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.

I guess we'll never know.

Or....could we know?

Anyone got any idea how we could possibly establish this? Anybody at all?

Of course, you are heavily hinting at getting video evidence - that is not as simple as waddling off to a bush fire with your smartphone. You would have apply to a wildlife or conservancy organization such as the National Parks Conservation Trust, The Nature Conservancy Australia, Conservation and Wildlife Research Trust or any one of the many organizations managing forest and wildlife in Australia, for both the necessary permits and the funding to go out with a film crew and try to capture some raptors in the act.

I hear you ask why someone has not already done this? Answers

1. Interest
Maybe because there aren't enough people who are interested enough to do this.

2. Money
The team of researchers can't just decide they want to do this, and schedule a day and time to go out to film, for the obvious reason that there first has to be a bush fire to investigate, and it needs to be one that is within reasonable distance to travel there quickly. Having a film crew on standby to go to a fire at a moments notice would cost truckload of money. You could well burn through your entire grant without ever getting called to a fire.

3. Permits
You would also need a ton of permits to go into those areas. I'm pretty sure land management and firefighting authorities in Australia would be none too keen on having a film crew pissing about near bush fires they are fighting. They would take a lot of convincing!

4. Danger
Bush fire zones are extremely hazardous places. You can be perfectly safe one moment, and then there is an unpredicted wind change and suddenly you team is in the firing line. There have been many, many cases when a wind change has been so sudden that it caught firefighters unawares, and resulted on their deaths. Here is the worst one I have heard about. Filming in a bush fire zone is very risky, very difficult and damned dangerous work. You have to wonder if doing this is worth the risk.


IMO, you could almost like this to Storm Chasing in the US.

 

[dann]

Just another 'It's-so-incredibly-difficult-that-it-practically-can't-be-done' post

Of course, you are heavily hinting at getting video evidence - that is not as simple as waddling off to a bush fire with your smartphone. You would have apply to a wildlife or conservancy organization such as the National Parks Conservation Trust, The Nature Conservancy Australia, Conservation and Wildlife Research Trust or any one of the many organizations managing forest and wildlife in Australia, for both the necessary permits and the funding to go out with a film crew and try to capture some raptors in the act.

I hear you ask why someone has not already done this? Answers

The funny thing about this argument is that the beginning of this thread is full of entirely irrelevant fotos of raptors in bushfires, mainly posted by macdoc.
Why irrelevant?
Because those photos of raptors and bushfires never showed a single raptor picking up burning twigs or a raptor dropping burning twigs on dry, yet unburned stretches of bushland. A more recent photo was of cockatoos lifting the lids of garbage bins, which might have been interesting in the context of this thread if those garbage bins turned out to be the place where raptors kept their smoldering twigs between fires, but it was entirely unrelated to bushfires - and raptors.

1. Interest
Maybe because there aren't enough people who are interested enough to do this.

There are enough people who are interested in spreading the myth and collecting stories about it, so it would be a weird first to see researchers be uninterested in a question like this. It is not as if ornithologists don't spend years with their video cameras hiding in nature to catch footage of that one rarely seen birdie to impress other ornithologists and birdwatchers. In this case, footage might even be of great social and political import, as Janice would have said. Ornithology rarely is.

2. Money
The team of researchers can't just decide they want to do this, and schedule a day and time to go out to film, for the obvious reason that there first has to be a bush fire to investigate, and it needs to be one that is within reasonable distance to travel there quickly. Having a film crew on standby to go to a fire at a moments notice would cost truckload of money. You could well burn through your entire grant without ever getting called to a fire.

Whereas these guys simply compare their calendars to schedule a day and time to go out to film: Tornado Hunters.

3. Permits
You would also need a ton of permits to go into those areas. I'm pretty sure land management and firefighting authorities in Australia would be none too keen on having a film crew pissing about near bush fires they are fighting. They would take a lot of convincing!

And why would a lot of arduous convincing be out of the question in this specific case? It is not as if it scares other researchers. 'So are you saying that they plan to build a block of flats in a place where we just discovered what seems to be remnants of the first human settlers? Too bad. It's their land, and I can't be bothered to ask the authorities to put a temporary stop to this, so I guess we'll never know.'
But maybe the difference in attitude between ornithologists and archeologists is that the field of archeology has attracted so many adventurous alpha males since the first Indiana Jones film.

4. Danger
Bush fire zones are extremely hazardous places. You can be perfectly safe one moment, and then there is an unpredicted wind change and suddenly you team is in the firing line. There have been many, many cases when a wind change has been so sudden that it caught firefighters unawares, and resulted on their deaths. Here is the worst one I have heard about. Filming in a bush fire zone is very risky, very difficult and damned dangerous work. You have to wonder if doing this is worth the risk.

Whereas you always know in advance which direction tornados will take. Tornados don't suddenly change their mind. You can depend upon them. And from my one visit to Texarkana, I know that they even have tornado alleys over there. So you will be safe as long as you step aside and make a little room for the tordado to pass - and maybe wear a helmet and a windbreaker just to be on the safe side.
Windbreakers wouldn't much use against fire-spreading birds. Some of the are extremely flammable!

IMO, you could almost like this to Storm Chasing in the US.

I just did!
We might finally agree on something - except for this:
2023's tornado death toll is approaching the average normally seen in a full year (CBS, April 6, 2023): "at least 63 people just this year"
Bushfire deaths in Australia, 2010-2020 (UNDRR Prevention Web, Feb 14, 2020): "At least 65 deaths due to bushfires have occurred in Australia from FY 2010 to FY 2020"
"Eleven deaths (17%) were due to a cardiac event and of those ten known, all were firefighting." No deaths seem to have been related to ornithology, birdwatching or raptor attacks, but "five (9%) were in an aircraft."
The people tended to be relatively old: "the 60-64 age group showed the highest value (death rate 0.94 deaths per 100,000 population), followed by age groups 75-79 (0.81), 65-69 (0.73) and 70-74 (0.60)."

All in all, I would advise against old asthmatic ornithologists with cardiac problems becoming Fire-Raptor Hunters. (Man, which producer of reality series wouldn't dream of financing that expedition to replace those boring shows showing immigration control opening suitcases in their never-ending search for illegal Chinese noodles!)

On the whole website, I found raptors mentioned only once:

Wildlife
Raptors, rodents, cattle, and other wildlife can affect electrical equipment. During my decades of utility experience, I have heard about or personally seen the destructive power of wildlife.
Are there risks we aren't considering for wildfires? (UNDRR, Dec 1, 2020)

I wonder what raptors do to electrical equipment. Is he thinking of the typical bird suicide by power line electrocution? I always wondered how Dumbo could land on those power lines unscathed:

Which makes me wonder: How do cows or sheep do it?!

 

[dann]

Anyone got any idea how we could possibly establish this? Anybody at all?

Sorry, but you'll have to give up on that idea. Australian bureaucracy, the final frontier, appears to be the final obstacle that prevents humankind from ever documenting this.

 

[angrysoba]

Of course, you are heavily hinting at getting video evidence - that is not as simple as waddling off to a bush fire with your smartphone.

So we are back to "I guess we'll never know!"

The birds might or might not be starting fires, so the Australian federal and state governments aren't going to be interested in funding research into this.

Though I don't see any sources cited for the aggressive refusals you see coming from this. And that is odd. Because one of the people claiming that the birds are setting fires is himself a firefighter. Are you sure you are not just making this up?

 

[smartcooky]

So we are back to "I guess we'll never know!"

Well, we might never know. Maybe someone will catch it on video or a series of photos. Of course, I fully expect the vested naysayers to scream "faaaake!!"

The birds might or might not be starting fires, so the Australian federal and state governments aren't going to be interested in funding research into this.

Perhaps not. If it is happening, it would be quite rare, and not significantly common compared with other ways that fire spreeds.

Though I don't see any sources cited for the aggressive refusals you see coming from this. And that is odd.

"Aggressive refusals" What are you taking about?

Because one of the people claiming that the birds are setting fires is himself a firefighter. Are you sure you are not just making this up?

"Making this up?" What on earth are you babbling on about now?

 

[angrysoba]

Well, we might never know. Maybe someone will catch it on video or a series of photos. Of course, I fully expect the vested naysayers to scream "faaaake!!"

I don't know what more there is to say.

Most people here are saying that eye-witness testimony is not sufficient to establish that the birds do this.

You seem to want to push the matter closer to the finish line and say, well, at least it is possible.

I mean sure, but why not get video of it? You have spent a lot of time trying to ridicule the notion that video is necessary, then finally come close to conceding it would probably be what is needed to settle the matter (I don't see any other ideas), but then thrown up a lot of objections to getting video.

Now you are trying to pre-empt objections by others to the very thing they are calling for. Video evidence.

But of course those annoying "naysayers" will be screaming.

Look dude, you accept eye-witness testimony is insufficient to establish this, but somehow you don't want to accept what others have said that we need video. Instead you have thrown around all kinds of objections about the permits and the funding and the bloody screaming naysayers, so then where are we?

Back to saying maybe, but maybe not. We will never know.

 

[angrysoba]

W
Perhaps not. If it is happening, it would be quite rare, and not significantly common compared with other ways that fire spreeds.

Why is it rare? Maybe it is extremely common!

Maybe it causes all kinds of fires?

Or maybe it doesn't happen at all.

 

[angrysoba]

"Aggressive refusals" What are you taking about?

Throwing up chaff!

"that is not as simple as waddling off to a bush fire with your smartphone"

Why not use something like this?

https://firewatchaustralia.com/the-firewatch-system/

"Making this up?" What on earth are you babbling on about now?

Making up objections. Are these objections based on actual knowledge you have for why birds cannot be filmed doing this, or are you just making up the objections? You seem to have a lot of answers for why the videos are unlikely to be forthcoming, but they seem like knee-jerk responses rather than actually based on publicly available information.

 

[dann]

Strange as it may seem to you, this is not so far away from how a real police report would proceed. Police get inundated by exaggerated, malicious and utterly false reports. They do not immediately accept the veracity of all reports. They certainly do not accept licence plates without checking that the number given matched the car model. It’s only where they accept the truth of the report that they take action.

I have personal experience of this. I was at a motor mechanic’s workshop a couple of years ago where two staff were having an argument. One hopped into a car and reversed it over the other man. It looked to me like it was deliberate, so I reported it. The police asked how I knew it was deliberate, so in mentioned the argument. They said they would call the mechanic.

Later that day I got a call from the owner who apologised for what I witnessed, and explained how distressed the driver was and that no damage was done. The police also rang and confirmed it was an accident.

My eyewitness evidence was so faulty as to be useless. I saw something (the argument) and drew a wrong conclusion. I’m sure the “firebird” witnesses have done the same.

Great story in this context!
One of the best videos I found was this one:

Why eyewitnesses fail | Thomas Albright (TEDx talk) "Our misinformed biases caused us to perceive things that don't exist."

The speaker got a guy out of jail whose sentence was based on eyewitness reports. What finally convinced the judge appeared to be when he was taken to the scene of the crime and was thus able to compare the eyewitness testimonies with conditions at the scene of the crime.

A less dramatic personal anecdote:
I was stopped by the police after I had turned right at a crossing. One traffic light showed red, but there was a separate light showing green (arrow) for turning right, which is what I did. I was familiar with that crossing, the policemen apparently weren't. Based on their dialect, I knew that they weren't from Copenhagen. They were young, and they sounded as if they hadn't spent much time in the capital yet.

I explained to them what they had misunderstood: From their point of observation, they could see the main traffic light, but they couldn't see the traffic light with the arrow pointing to the right. I asked them to accompany me back to the place where they had been when they observed me turn right, which they refused to do. They kept repeating that the case was "crystal clear" and told me that I would receive a ticket, which I did a few weeks later.

I know that people come up with all kinds of bad excuses for traffic violations, but it still annoyed me that they wouldn't even attempt to understand what I was telling them.

I wrote a letter describing what had happened and asked that the two policemen be taken to the 'scene of the crime' to observe exactly how the traffic lights at that particular crossing worked. I don't know if that ever happened, but about a month later I received a letter telling me that the charges had been dropped.

I am pretty sure that if the charges hadn't been dropped, I would have had the choice between paying an expensive lawyer or just paying the fine, and I would probably have paid the fine. I have no doubt that the policemen as professional law enforcers ad thus expert witnesses in court would have insisted that they observed me commit a red light violation.


This is OT, but in another case when I was actually guilty as charged, I wasn't fined. I was on my way to work, but it was the middle of the day so there was almost no traffic. I had a late class that day, but I was early because I wanted to use the copy machine for some copies for the next day.

But I was definitely speeding. I didn't know by how much, but I knew I was, and the mc highway patrol cop said it was as much as 50%. Then he started to ask me questions that sounded as if he was deliberately trying to make me come up with bad excuses: 'Are you in a hurry?' No, I wasn't. 'Is there some meeting you are late for?' No, I was on my way to work, but I had plenty of time to get there. I had no excuses. I was speeding. Conditions made it safe to be speeding on this highway at that particular point in time, but I knew that I was speeding, and I knew that good weather conditions are no excuse, so I didn't bring it up.

And then he said, 'Well, but apart from that, you were doing everything right. Have a nice day, and buy something nice for your wife for the money I just saved you.'

There really wasn't anything else I can imagine I could have done wrong traffic-wise. I don't know if his attitude was due to the fact that we were both on motorcycles. I have heard rumors from other motorcyclists that the mc highway patrols tend to be more lenient with motorcyclists than those in patrol cars are, but it seemed to me that he was just surprised and appreciated that I didn't make up any lame stories.

 

[dann]

Throwing up chaff!

"that is not as simple as waddling off to a bush fire with your smartphone"

Why not use something like this?

https://firewatchaustralia.com/the-firewatch-system/



Making up objections. Are these objections based on actual knowledge you have for why birds cannot be filmed doing this, or are you just making up the objections? You seem to have a lot of answers for why the videos are unlikely to be forthcoming, but they seem like knee-jerk responses rather than actually based on publicly available information.

It's nothing but making-it-up-as-you-go-along bad excuses for the lack of video evidence. And in addition to that there are all the arrogant insinuations that the rest of us know nothing about conditions in Australia like this one from his post with the contrived car-accident analogy:

You may not have noticed it, but Australian bush fires don't actually happen in downtown Sydney on a busy Friday night.

He must have a guardian angel.

 

[smartcooky]

Throwing up chaff!

"that is not as simple as waddling off to a bush fire with your smartphone"

Why not use something like this?

https://firewatchaustralia.com/the-firewatch-system/

Sorry, how is this an "aggressive refusal" (whatever the hell that means anyway). I've lost you. You'll have to explain yourself better.

Making up objections. Are these objections based on actual knowledge you have for why birds cannot be filmed doing this, or are you just making up the objections? You seem to have a lot of answers for why the videos are unlikely to be forthcoming, but they seem like knee-jerk responses rather than actually based on publicly available information.

I'm merely speculating.

Try putting yourself in the position of what you would do if you decided to make an attempt to verify these eye-witness reports. Try getting into some detail, thinking about some of the problems you would encounter. If you actually bothered putting some thought into your posts rather than knee-jerking off the first thing that pops into your head, you might start making some sense.

NOTE: Oh, and yes, having been a volunteer firefighter in rural Canterbury back in the day, I can tell you that we didn't much like look'n'peepers and reporter getting in our way when we were attending a blaze, so at least I have some experience to call on in that regard.

 

[William Parcher]

People may be making up eyewitness stories as a way of perpetuating Aboriginal myths and legends in the modern times. A tribute to a culture. Similar to the Drop Bear, Yowie, Bunyip, etc.

 

[William Parcher]

How close to the open flames would a stick need to be in order to be partially on fire? Maybe too close for a bird to safely pick it up.

 

[dann]

People may be making up eyewitness stories as a way of perpetuating Aboriginal myths and legends in the modern times. A tribute to a culture. Similar to the Drop Bear, Yowie, Bunyip, etc.

They may also consider it to be condescending to Aboriginal Australians to question the literal truth of those myths - maybe except for the parts of the stories where the raptors talk.

A very similar attitude can be seen in people who become defensive of bird intelligence if anybody questions the stories about fire-spreading birds. I see no other explanation for all the stories about intelligent birds that have been posted in this thread.

 

[dann]

How close to the open flames would a stick need to be in order to be partially on fire? Maybe too close for a bird to safely pick it up.

It wouldn't have to be particularly close to the fire at all. Some smoldering sticks will be left on the ground after the fire has burned out. I don't doubt that the Australian raptors would be able to pick up a smoldering stick if the wanted to. After all, they are close enough to the fire to be able to pick up prey, either unscathed and trying to flee from the fire or partially burnt (cooked! ) after the fire has burned itself out.

You yourself can get close enough to open flames to pick up a burning stick from a campfire. So can a bird. It just serves no purpose for it. If it is close to the fire, it is there for the prey, not for the sticks.

Not even my own lovebirds picked up burning drinking straws and slips of paper, but they got close enough to open (gas) flames with the straws and paper slips they'd picked up to set them on fire without being aware of what they were doing.

 

[angrysoba]

Sorry, how is this an "aggressive refusal" (whatever the hell that means anyway). I've lost you. You'll have to explain yourself better.



I'm merely speculating.

Try putting yourself in the position of what you would do if you decided to make an attempt to verify these eye-witness reports. Try getting into some detail, thinking about some of the problems you would encounter. If you actually bothered putting some thought into your posts rather than knee-jerking off the first thing that pops into your head, you might start making some sense.

NOTE: Oh, and yes, having been a volunteer firefighter in rural Canterbury back in the day, I can tell you that we didn't much like look'n'peepers and reporter getting in our way when we were attending a blaze, so at least I have some experience to call on in that regard.

Just film the frikkin birds already! I’m not asking you to go into Area 51!

 

[macdoc]

Just ....

377,973 km² Japan

ONE desert in Australia
Great Victoria Desert (348,750sq.km)

the Outback where the kites hangout

The Outback is a vast area spanning 5.6 million km2 and covering more than 70 percent of the Australian continent.

 

[angrysoba]

Just ....

377,973 km² Japan

ONE desert in Australia
Great Victoria Desert (348,750sq.km)

the Outback where the kites hangout


[qimg]https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/post-launch-images/2014/10/australia/defining_outback_australia_fig_1.png[/qimg]

Well then how do other kites see each other doing this to learn from them?

That is one of the claims, right? That this is learned behaviour and passed down.

But apparently we will never see it. Don't even think of getting anyone in to film it because.... permits.... big Outback... cost...

Then how do we know this is happening?

Anecdotes!

But we already agreed that this is insufficient to establish that this is happening. All we can say is that it might happen.

So where are we?

Here:

There is insufficient evidence to support the claim that kites use fire as a tool for hunting.

Do we all agree?

We all agree that there is one way we can get evidence and yet that is being busily denied as practical.

Alright then. Then return to this:

There is insufficient evidence to support the claim that kites use fire as a tool for hunting.

 

[smartcooky]

Well then how do other kites see each other doing this to learn from them?[/B]

Because they are attracted in groups to fires to feast on the rodents and other creatures trying to escape. A Black Kite can smell a fire from miles away.

This means you either have to go to a bush-fire (better you than me) which means you would probably have to violate the law by breaking through the safety cordons, or else light your own. I wouldn't recommend the latter, its an offence that carries a ****-load of jail time if you get caught.

Oh and if you are lucky enough to see a Black Kite, be careful. They WILL attack you if you get too close.


ETA: All this is to say, "Just film the frikkin birds already"is not as easy as you think. You have to be lucky enough to be at the exact right place at the exact right time, and will have had to travel 1000+ kilometres and a dozen hours to have even had an opportunity to be at that place and time.... which is probably why no-one has managed to film this yet.

 

[dann]

Do we all agree?

I do, and I think most of us do. But all? Probably not.

A couple of us seem to think that it is somehow condescending to bird intelligence, ranger eyewitnesses and Aboriginal mythology to call the evidence insufficient.
We are only allowed to talk about insufficient evidence in cases of alien abduction and Bigfoot sightings, which is why it is impermissible to say the same thing about eyewitnesses telling us about fire-spreading birds.

 

[angrysoba]

It's is amazing that this thread could be filled with photos and links to videos of those birds circling around and landing near bushfires, isn't it? How was it even possible?
(See arguments for the near impossibility of the existence of those photos and videos in smartcooky's most recent and earlier posts.)

Just film the frikkin birds already!

Yep, according to the arguments of smartcooky and macdoc we shouldn't even be able to have video or photographs of the birds, or the fires, let alone the birds and fires together.

 

[macdoc]

SC laid it out for you before but you just blather on trying conflate observed behaviour of kites well within their known abilities with

the monstrous claim of the existence of BF et al.

YOU, don't understand these are different things...

A couple of us seem to think that it is somehow condescending to bird intelligence, ranger eyewitnesses and Aboriginal mythology to call the evidence insufficient.

We are only allowed to talk about insufficient evidence in cases of alien abduction and Bigfoot sightings

Your attempt at ridicule is puerile at best......wearisome always.....and on top of being insulting to Aboriginal deep time tribal lore which you are about as ignorant of as you are of ornithology and even simple reason.

Read this paper in full again with some respect ......

1 December 2017
Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia
Mark Bonta, Robert Gosford, Dick Eussen, Nathan Ferguson, Erana Loveless, Maxwell Witwer
Author Affiliations +
J. of Ethnobiology, 37(4):700-718 (2017). https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-37.4.700

https://bioone.org/journals/journal...ern-Australia/10.2993/0278-0771-37.4.700.full

 

[angrysoba]

I mean, to be fair, the reason why there is no video of birds using fire as a weapon is that the behaviour is rare. Very, very rare and the Outback is huge. It’s sort of the same reason we don’t see good video of Bigfoot. He’s rare and North America is huge. It’s not comparable to downtown Canterbury.

By the way, I hope nobody is dismissing Native American lore regarding Sasquatch.

 

[dann]

I, for one, am certainly not! It would be intolerably disrespectful and insulting to all Native Americans and Sasquatches!
It doesn't sound right to me, but both Wiktionary and The Free Dictionary tell me that it's the correct plural form of Sasquatch.

(I thought I had come up with a new marketable idea, but somebody beat me to it!
For that Bigfoot hunter in your life who's got everything else.)

 

[smartcooky]

I mean, to be fair, the reason why it is difficult to obtain video of birds using fire as a weapon is that the behaviour is rare. Very, very rare and the Outback is huge. It’s sort of the same reason we don’t see good video of Bigfoot. He’s rare and North America is huge. It’s not comparable to downtown Canterbury.

By the way, I hope nobody is dismissing Native American lore regarding Sasquatch.

FTFY

(irrelevant false equivalence claptrap struck out)


"I am not fully convinced that birds are purposefully picking up burning twigs and dropping them in new areas to start new fires. Nonetheless my mind is open to the possibility because such behaviour would be well within the known ranges of behaviour of the more "intelligent" tool making/using birds such as raptors, corvids and psittadids."

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I mean, to be fair, the reason why there is no video of birds using fire as a weapon is that the behaviour is rare. Very, very rare and the Outback is huge. It’s sort of the same reason we don’t see good video of Bigfoot. He’s rare and North America is huge. It’s not comparable to downtown Canterbury.

By the way, I hope nobody is dismissing Native American lore regarding Sasquatch.

Well, it's been dismissed in the sense that any Native American lore regarding Sasquatch has little in common with the current lore regarding Bigfoot.

Native American myths/traditions support Bigfoot? A critical look.

A good example of this is the lengthy discussion in the 'Simple Challenge for Bigfoot Supporters' thread regarding kushtaka (kû'cta-qa), a mythical being in the traditions of the Tlingit people of northwestern North America. We were told that kushtaka was a well-known and supported term for bigfoot and after much discussion and examination by skeptics the claim was dropped after the 'Land Otter Man' nature of the myth was established.

FWIW, there are 346 topics at ISF with " Bigfoot " in the thread title..

It was a big thing here for a while.

 

[angrysoba]

FTFY

(irrelevant false equivalence claptrap struck out)


"I am not fully convinced that birds are purposefully picking up burning twigs and dropping them in new areas to start new fires. Nonetheless my mind is open to the possibility because such behaviour would be well within the known ranges of behaviour of the more "intelligent" tool making/using birds such as raptors, corvids and psittadids."

Here's how a skeptic might approach the question...

As you are agnostic but lean towards accepting the claim, what would you need to see to shift one way or another?

I have already stated that if good video evidence can be shown unequivocally showing the birds using fire in the way described (i.e picking up burning sticks, dropping them in areas where they then wait for prey to be flushed out, and then capturing that prey), then I would be convinced. That would falsify my skepticism.

Despite your armchair protestations that video is almost impossible to gather because of a series of objections you have raised, then, assuming this is real drone footage, it seems that the objections fall by the wayside.



However, in your case, smartcooky and macdoc, what would you need to see to accept that the birds do NOT do this?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

What did I miss seeing them doing in the film? Is there a question that birds can fly?


Get a load of the comment and snarky reply..

"Yet no footage of a hawk actually picking up or carrying a flaming stick anywhere to be seen."

Reply:

"are said to have the ability". English comprehension used to be taught as a subject in schools.

Is that you smartcooky?

 

[macdoc]

However, in your case, smartcooky and macdoc, what would you need to see to accept that the birds do NOT do this?

You cannot prove a negative....
the particular species have the capability and I accept some have seen it as it makes sense. The birds and humans have been co-existing in a tough area to make a living for 60,000 years.
A further paper on the behaviour might be useful at some point when further observations...perhaps a dedicated field effort with bird behaviour scientists aboard perhaps as part of other studies like the pack hunting raptors here.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ly-raptor-known-to-hunt-in-cooperative-packs/

There is still lots to learn about the biome and human behaviours in this continuously occupied area of the planet.

 

[angrysoba]

You cannot prove a negative....
the particular species have the capability and I accept some have seen it as it makes sense. The birds and humans have been co-existing in a tough area to make a living for 60,000 years.
A further paper on the behaviour might be useful at some point when further observations...perhaps a dedicated field effort with bird behaviour scientists aboard perhaps as part of other studies like the pack hunting raptors here.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ly-raptor-known-to-hunt-in-cooperative-packs/

There is still lots to learn about the biome and human behaviours in this continuously occupied area of the planet.

Then how do you accept there is no Bigfoot?

 

[macdoc]

Where ever did you get that idea.?
You fail to grasp the difference between a big foot claim and a common skill exhibited by raptors that may include intentional fire advancement.

•••
Soba, the Firehawk video is lovely but again .....filming a specific behaviour that may be rare or restricted to a specific raptor culture and not in others will not engender spending much money on the effort.

According to the paper indigenes take it for granted as a given behaviour they are aware of.
They and helicopter rangers set bush fires all the time.
I've seen the latter and it's a cool job firing little incendiary bombs from the copter.
They had a great display at Kakadu National Park ... it was a about the size of a softball and the rangers just tossed them out the door where they wanted the burn. We saw dozens of fires started that way.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-31/aerial-burnoffs-in-the-whitsundays/101052620

 

[dann]

You cannot prove a negative....

Which is why the ball is in your court. You and smartcooky are the ones who claim that birds spread fire by picking up sticks and dropping them in unburnt grass. The rest of us are not. You are the ones who need to show that your objections to the possibility of getting video evidence are correct.

the particular species have the capability and I accept some have seen it as it makes sense. The birds and humans have been co-existing in a tough area to make a living for 60,000 years.

You accept that some have seen it even though it makes as much sense as Bigfoot sightings - no more, no less.

A further paper on the behaviour might be useful at some point when further observations...perhaps a dedicated field effort with bird behaviour scientists aboard perhaps as part of other studies like the pack hunting raptors here.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ly-raptor-known-to-hunt-in-cooperative-packs/

No, we don't need another one of those papers. We need to see video evidence. Not a paper from people who have a hard time distinguishing between religion, eyewitness accounts and video evidence. This is not a court of law, and what we would like to see evidence of is not a crime or an accident that happens only once and is over almost before it begins. This is not something that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away in a period of civil war.

So add this to your list of what we need: 'perhaps a dedicated field effort with bird behaviour scientists, equipped with and trained in handling video cameras and video drones, aboard'.

People go there, people live there, they make videos of the places and the birds during fires, and now we have been presented with footage from drones, so even the argument that clumsy videographers wouldn't be allowed to get in the way of firefighters doing their job (while allegedly witnessing birds spreading fire again and again) has been rendered moot.

When smartcooky claims that authorities refuse to give videographers permission to film the fire-spreading birds, then let us see that rejection.

There is still lots to learn about the biome and human behaviours in this continuously occupied area of the planet.

There is indeed! And inquiring minds need to know. They don't need come up with poor excuses for why it can't be done.