Australia's Lightning Birds — Research Proves Raptors Actually Set Fires To Flush Out Prey

There is often an assumption that myths are nothing more than grand metaphors. But several so-called 'folktales' from Australia's Dreamtime (a complex term that often refers to the time before white colonisation) have subsequently proven to be true, despite initially seeming implausible. One example are stories — passed down through generations by means of oral histories — that accurately describe Australia's rising sea levels more than 10,000 years ago. Now, ornithologists have eyewitness evidence of another common folklore trope: that of birds controlling bushfires to their own ends.

Scientists have often observed that raptors would congregate at the edges of bushfires, as the fires made it easier for them to spot and capture fleeing or exposed prey. Folklore held that some birds took this even further and deliberately carried fire from one place to another. After some concerted bird-spotting, there is now significant evidence of birds making 'solo and cooperative attempts, often successful, to spread wildfires intentionally via single-occasion or repeated transport of burning sticks in talons or beaks'. What has been documented by several independent observers also apparently ties in closely to behaviour represented in certain traditional sacred ceremonies in Australia's Northern Territories. This is more evidence that oral histories — even those couched in ritual and metaphor — can capture events as accurately as written histories.