Mallacoota Weather and Wildlife: Some photos of recovery starting

These images are part of a plan to take photographs over the next year showing how the country regenerates after the fire. By way of background, we noticed that after the February 2017 fire in Carwoola:

the eucalypts became 'fuzzy' with epicormic shoots about a month later (ie mid March); and
in approximately December the landscape appeared to suddenly change from "black with a green tinge" to the green it was (in so far as sclerophyll woodland can be regarded as green).

I'm planning to take photos each month to track this and have three areas in mind. They are shown in this image.

At this stage I haven't worked out how to present the data for a long term view. For example do I want to group all the 'landscape' images together as the main game with detail as a separate category or classify material by type of plant? Is it important to keep the sites separate or just have the images classified by time? So for this post at least the images are pretty much in the order I took them.

I have previously posted a few photos of TOPSY (sort of an acronymic mnemonic for Track Opposite Pony Club).

Here is the starting Point for the site on Karbeethong Rd. I think the left side is public land controlled by the Shire while the right is part of Croajingalong National Park

The obviously regrowth at ground level is unfortunately bracken. Hopegully shrubs will grow up through this and shade it out.

More welcome fernery are a few tree ferns (Cyathea australis).

Some of the eucalypts are already fuzzy. Both growing up the trunk ...

.. and mixed with the burnt leaves in the canopy.

Moving on to the Betka site I have chosen the peninsula between the estuary and the ocean as it is a mixture of burnt and unburnt areas. That will become apparent in the images which follow.

I begin with an image of the "estuary" currently blocked as a result in insufficient rain to keep it open. The cliffs on the far side of the kelp covered beach show the ferocity of the fire as it came though there.

Ash was evident trapped against the rhyzomes of the grass.

The start of the formal track was unburnt.

A short distance in a Banksia integrifolia was showing signs of flowering in the near future which will give a food boost for the honeyeaters. (On which topic, it is the first time I have done this walk without recording a single Red or Little Wattlebird nor a New Holland Honeyeater.)

Clearly an ember has started a spot fire here, burning a small area.

Looking across the estuary shows the burn onthe far side with a mixture of burnt and greem shrubs on the ocean side.

A flower! Senecio pinnatifolius (Variable Groundsel)

These corded and twisted trunks intrigue me. I can't remember what species they are, and they are showing no signs of regrowth.

A grass flower!

I think this is regrowth on Acacia longifoliaon. If so, it is unusual

For reasons I have yet to establish (if I ever do) this area has been severely burnt.

However there is ground cover regrowth happening. We think this is Lomandra sp, (Mat rush) but will check as the plants mature.

Looking across a small lagoon towards the Davis Creek car park a first point was that the area isn't quite (wasn't quite??) a monoculture of Melaleuca armillaris: there are some unburnt/regenerating eucalypts in there. Also, as indicated by the green arrows, there appeared to be some less damaged Melaleuca as well.

This is looking into the lagoon. The sticks in the foreground are trees killed in the past by flooding rather than the fire.

This shows the walking track up to the car park. For reasons best known to themselves the jobsworths from the Shire have closed this track. We have walked it since the fire and it appears to be completely save. Apart from anything else the trees - to promote tall shrubs up the size order - are so small they'd do little damage if the did fall on you.

A couple of regenerating eucalypts.

Banksia cones open when they get burnt!

I don't hold out much hope for this stand of Melaleuca regenerating anytime soon ...

... but in places there is a good lot of green pick at ground level

The interest in this image is the white gunk, which I suspect is a species of slime mould. Although it looks like a fungus it probably isn't but is referred to (except by the DNA freaks) as a protist. It is worth reading that article. It probably leads to thoughts like "a DNA sequencing taxonomist is simply a jobsworth with a PhD".

I can spot at least 4 different types of seedlings in this image. Possibly if they all it their straps we'll end up with a much more diverse plant society here than the previous memaleuca forest.