XIV. The Ethnobiology of Birds

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In 2017 colleagues and I documented preliminary research and findings on intentional fire-spreading behaviour by several Australian raptors. That publication, though primarily based on direct observations by non-Aboriginal land managers, briefly noted the centrality of Aboriginal knowledge of this behaviour to our research and identified that knowledge base as a future research priority. Following up on that work, we have concentrated on two primary research tasks. Firstly, reviewing interviews conducted between 2009 and 2017 with knowledge holders and land managers and second, further interviews with Aboriginal landowners, knowledge holders and land managers to 2023.In this presentation we will examine the important roles that Garrkan­­—the Brown Falcon, Falco berigora—is accorded as a landscape-scale land manager through the manipulation of wildfire, as a cultural actor in traditional ceremonies and in cultural practices and beliefs, and as a “troublemaker for fire.” We will summarise prospects for future collaborative research.

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Documenting how local communities recognize and name the distinctive elements of their biodiverse environment provides a solid foundation for understanding how we humans engage the wider society of sentient beings, the core of the ethnographic enterprise. Among the earliest systematic ethnographies is Sahagún’s encyclopedic documentation of Aztec life, accessible in the original Náhuatl, with a parallel English translation (Florentine Codex). The largest Codex volume is devoted to ”Earthly Things,” including a chapter describing “all the birds” (tōtō-tl). To translate the birds named, described, and illustrated in th Codex, I offer my best educated guesses as to the correspondence of each Náhuatl bird name to one or more Linnean taxa based on each bird’s morphology, vocalizations, habitat, and seasonal movements, as described by the Aztec scribes. My confidence in my “educated guesses” varies, but I offer reasoned justifications for 131 of 135 categories named in the Codex.

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This paper presents my open-ended experiment using ethnographic methods to ask biological questions about the socio-spatial dynamics of bird foraging activities in urban edge habitat. Most days for six-weeks before and after low tide in fall 2023, I assumed my post on top of an outlet pipe to record observations in an estuarial node of the East Atlantic flyway. The resulting landscape drawings and text, Android phone photos and video harmlessly capture small flocks moving linearly along the water’s edge and as clustered companions spreading out across the mudflats, their bills rarely lifting up from the bubbling sediment: a thick description of biodiversity. Data analysis will characterize the gestures, body shapes, and foraging styles of flamingos, spoonbills, and godwits as they enact the 21st century trophic ecology of waders. The findings will highlight multi-species urban liveliness in a revitalized and densely populated post-industrial coast and pose questions about the nature of site fidelity and belonging.