Firebirds: The Roc and the Phoenix

Bonebower birds are group of sparrowgulls once known for their gory displays of "wealth" in the form of the skulls of their prey animals that males hung up in collections to impress potential partners. In the hothouse, that behavior is largely lost. Descendants of these birds now fill many inland niches similar to Earth's birds of prey, and like them have developed strong grasping talons with which they catch and carry away their victims, but they also are very capable tool builders and so can disable more dangerous and powerful animals at a safer distance with spears and similar weapons. Some species have grown significantly in size, becoming among the largest of all flying bipedal birds to have ever lived.

The roc, a descendant of the spearrowhawk, is a gigantic example of this clade. It is now by far the largest of all bonebowers at up to 110 lbs, and among the flying sparrowgulls is approached in weight only by the biggest sea ravens, though those birds have wider wingspans. Both clades may straddle the maximum weight attainable by a bird that does not use quadrupedal launching to take off, and for the most part, both also require strong winds to take flight.

Rocs are fearsome apex predator birds which make their homes in Serinaustra's northern coastal regions, nesting and hunting along the cliffs and chasms of sky islands that form in these sediment-rich seaside areas. The roc has been able to grow to such a size because of its habitat choice, where strong ocean gusts rush up the vertical sea-facing cliffs and provide lift, and indeed, this massive bird has great difficulty flying from the ground, and if it finds itself there must often climb up to a great height on foot before it can get enough wind to get itself airborne again. The wings of the roc are wide and blunt, unlike the narrow pointed ones of seabirds, and reflect its different behavior. Unlike sea ravens, rocs do not hunt over the water, but soar along the cliffs and there ambush grazers as they cling to the steep terrain. Rocs carry in their claws long sharpened rods, carefully shaped from tree branches, in order to spear their victims with a sideways maneuver through the chest as they fly by the cliff at an angle; their legs are especially flexible and adapted to throw spears in this manner, all while keeping the head stationary and balanced in flight. Then, as the stricken animal tumbles down toward the ground - spear still lodged through its body - the roc turns and descends into a rapid spiral to catch the handle of its weapon and carry the dead or nearly-so quarry onto a nearby ledge to feed. Though often a solitary hunter, the roc as an adult lives in pairs that will readily work together to bring down prey too large for a single animal to subdue, and couples are even able to cooperatively carry prey too heavy for either to lift on its own, using long spears like a skewer to hold the carcass in the middle while either bird grabs one end.

The roc is a member of a wider genus of birds known as firebirds, which get this name from their vibrant red plumage. Just how the firebirds, all of which are carnivorous and hunt vertebrates, acquire this color is unique among birds. They do not consume any carotenoid pigments in their diet to sequester in their feathers as seed-eating or insectivore birds do. The vibrant color of the roc and its relatives is actually a porpyhrin pigment that is related to the hemoglobin in the blood. As in blood, the deep, non-iridescent red hue of the roc's feathers comes from iron molecules. Among other animals, trunkos such as sealumps and snifflers utilize a somewhat similar metabolic pathway to synthesize both red and green hues from dietary copper that is more widely available in plants and insect prey. The bonebower birds have evolved an alternative method of producing red coloration on their own flesh-based diet, which provides little copper, but a large amount of iron.

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Somewhere on the savannahs of Serinarcta, an explosive roar resonates across the landscape, a bellow more powerful than the voice of any of its creatures. A thunderhead brewing overhead in the turbulent evening air has sparked lightning and struck a cementree, causing it to superheat and rupture, and its canopy to burst into flame. Most animals run for their lives as the tree incinerates before collapsing with a bang and shattering into shards, but one flies toward the inferno. For an opportunistic phoenix, this is its chance.

The phoenixes are several small, raven-sized relatives of the fierce roc, which are known for their use of fire as a tool, though this is just one of many in their arsenal. Extremely resourceful, dexterous, and innovative, these birds are drawn to brief natural fires from lightning strikes, actively spreading the flames in lines to flush and trap large prey animals otherwise out of its reach as a hunter. These social bonebower birds create torches by dipping broken-off sticks in tree resin, or wrapped in dried tinder in the form of puffseed grass, then light them in wildfires and spread the flames wildly by flying low and dropping their torches to the ground in suitably dry sites where, with luck, the flames will grow. Skungaroos, snoots and loopalopes are surrounded by lines of fire and burned to death. Rain from the storm is likely to put out the fires in a relatively short time, and then the birds descend to feast on the charred remains of their hapless prey.

Of three species commonly called phoenixes, the Whitecrown's phoenix is the most skilled fire wielder, and the only one which has learned to keep fire alive long-term. Inhabiting old, hollow spires of deceased cementrees, they turn them into chimneys and create long-lasting fires at their bases, which are kept out of wind and rain. Whole packs of these birds 'feed' their flame with kindling. And at night, they light torches to go hunting with their own lights and a weapon feared by all other animals. Phoenixes stampede whole herds of grazers with sudden walls of fire, making use of natural choke points to run their victims into ravines where they pile up to their deaths. An enormous supply of food acquired this way would quickly decompose in the hothouse climate, but this phoenix is ingenious, and has discovered that meat lasts far longer dried and smoked than fresh. When a kill is made, it is immediately dismembered, sometimes by a cooperative group of a hundred or more birds. Strips of flesh are hung in the upper heights of the chimney, where they are preserved through heat and smoke. Such a stable food supply has recently allowed the whitecrown's phoenix to experience a population explosion, and up to a hundred million of them are now widely dispersed across the open grasslands of the northern continent, making them a highly significant predator of the many and varied grazers.

Food security has reduced territorial aggression, and for the most part they are cooperative birds forming large communities, each comprised of numerous smaller family units which maintain amicable relationships with their neighbors and which rely on help from them to periodically complete large hunts. Clans, groups which include up to a hundred family groups, are often strengthened as a unit with arranged couplings between young adults born from associated families; in this way, two packs can become one, and the wider clan grows tighter knit. Large stores of smoked meat represent an attractive target for competing animals, including rival clans, to steal, but whitecrown's phoenixes are clever, and have found ways to reduce theft while also limiting hostile interactions wherever possible by developing a concept of trade. They are specialist hunters with a narrow but perfected skillset, but a diet of purely smoked meat grows boring after a while. Some phoenixes have learned to barter with other intelligent birds, especially those which can imitate voices and so speak their language, like pickbirds and other chatteravens. Most often, they seek to exchange cooked meat for fruits, nuts, and all manner of foods from the water which are mysterious and tempting to these fire-fueled hunters. Cooked meat is delicious, but few other birds can understand the complexity of acquiring it any other way, and so other species often become frequent traders for their fix of loopalope jerky, giving nearly anything else they might have for another taste of the good stuff.

Interspecies trading posts develop along shared migration routes and near common waterholes, where one party offers an assortment of goods and the other settles on a fair trade with their own wares. Perhaps the most remarkable example of such commerce is trade of clan members themselves. Occasional pickbirds living among clans of phoenixes may originate from chicks traded in return for food resources to well-off phoenixes which lacked offspring of their own and wished to have one to raise - there may not be an ability to comprehend that such birds are not actually perpetuating their genes, or it may be that the phoenix, as such a social bird, does not care and simply enjoys rearing a child. More rarely, other species of birds may be traded into a phoenix clan as an exotic-looking mate, which can be a status symbol to other phoenixes, especially among dominant males, that their wealth is so great and their lives so free and easy that they can waste precious time with a partner that cannot even bear them young. Slave labor, a darker outcome, also exists and may be the eventual fate of the less fortunate cross-fostered adopted chicks once they outgrow their childhood and their "parents" lose interest. Among the most human-like of Serinan birds so far to evolve, the civilization built by this near-sophont bird, which is smart as a whip in a narrow skillset but still lacking in a human-like self awareness and concept of ethics, mirrors not only humanity's positive, pro-social tendencies, but some of its darkest aspects as well.