Paradise Lost Sunday Flower Walk!

Fynbos needs fire, but when it comes, it's such a disappointment! On Tuesday morning, it is reported, children who should have been at school (!) at a swimming place lit a fire and it got out of control, leading to huge losses of plantation trees and danger to properties in the area. 

The whole valley had to turn out with bakkie-sakkies on Wednesday afternoon to assist Working on Fire with three Hueys and a Pawnee water-bomber 'plane, Cape Pine and Cape Nature prevent the fire from spreading into Applegarth and the Experimental Farm. I was involved with a tractor and spray machine from 6 pm till 2 am on Tuesday night, watching a back-burn. During the night the wind came up in our direction and the fire jumped the road, so I was helping again from midday to 12 pm on Wednesday, by which time the fire was under control.

At one stage the helicopters were doing 2-minute circuits, from dump to dump, which can be seen in these two you-tubes: http://youtu.be/ChNVF7c7m5c and http://youtu.be/qLvjQGhZkog, dropping 2½ tonnes of water at a time.

The result is devastating:

Looking South towards our farm

We live dead centre, behind the closest orchard. The unburned band is only about 300 metres wide. The unburned part includes the Agathosma betulina we have been watching, with its 'babies' all around:

This Buchu Agathosma betulina and its 'babies' are in the unburned band

But it seems to have just included the pink Gladiolus carneus which we luckily collected seeds from.

Looking Eastwards, to the left of the top picture, one can see how the fire swept through the plantation towards Applegarth and the Experimental Farm. The Country Club is on the left hand edge of the picture:

Fire through the plantation

At one stage on Wednesday the Experimental Farm was seriously threatened:

This is how close the fire got to the Experimental Farm orchards

Further around to the North, there is a fire-truck and Cape Pine staff are still attending to flare-ups on the 'left flank' of the fire:

Northwards

Pippa worked out where to look for this, the Agapanthus walshii with the five flowers on it. We had only last week slipped a stocking over one of them to catch a few seeds.

One of our earliest Agapanthus walshii spots had five flowers

We found another, which bravely held on to its flower, but all the seeds are 'cooked':

Pippa found one with a flower still but the seeds were 'cooked'

This is the magnificent Mimetes cucullatus we have been watching on the top of the hill:

Mimetes cucullatus

But Nature is already reacting, look at this Protea cynaroides:

This Protea cynaroides has distributed all of its seeds

All its seeds have been dispersed! Here are a few still to be released from a flower close by:

There are still some seeds on this one to disperse

Pat has told us that we can wait as little as two weeks for the Fire Lilies Cyrtanthus ventricosa to come up, especially as we had a light shower on Wednesday night. So I went to look at where we have marked the two we have found; the firrst with a ring of stones:

Our ring of stones around a Fire Lily Cyrtanthus ventricosa

And lower down the ones on the cycle track:

We know there's a Fire Lily Cyrtanthus ventricosa here on the cycle track

I used the opportunity to shift the cycle track further away from them and pack more rocks around them:

I moved the cycle track away to the right a bit

We were aware of raptors taking advantage of the lack of cover, here a Yellow-billed Kite hovered over us:

Yellow-billed Kite taking advantage of the lack of cover!

On the subject of birds, during the fire on Wednesday afternoon I spotted this bird flying bewildered and agitated in the smoke looking for all the world like a Night-Jar:

Nightjar (?) in the smoke on Wednesday

So we'll be watching and monitoring the return of the Fynbos; Paradise Regained, as Milton reminded us!

At home, the March Lily Amaryllis belladonna flowered a full two weeks early:

Pippa painting the March Lilies Amaryllis belladonna in the garden

:-) A