The Ragtag Daily Prompt: Fire in the Sky
I didn’t know there was an actual song called Fire in the Sky
Feel the heat
Tag: fire
Desolate
Raspberry Lookout 1 March 2020
Raspberry Lookout. One of my favourite places to go and have a picnic and chill for a while. I have featured the lookout in past posts but never in a whole post.
We went from my place up the Gibraltar Range to see what had happened there since October 2019. The fires had burnt through there and eventually came down the mountains to my place. As it is a wonderful place to see, I could not bring myself to drive along the highway to Raspberry as the memories of such a special place for me would have had me in tears I reckon. Couldn’t go there anyway as the highway was closed until late January. The amount of very big trees that had burnt down and fallen across the road was amazing. They are still removing trees and fixing protective road barriers.
It has taken me until now to be able to write and show you the photos from the lookout. This is just Raspberry Lookout not the drive up or down the mountain. As they were working there wasn’t the opportunity to stop. I was very heartened by the recovery that had taken place so come on, lets have a look around Raspberry Lookout.
This is the view from Raspberry Lookout. You can see where the fires had been. Some parts of the countryside were patches of rainforest
In case you were uncertain what to look for, here’s a bit of a close up. Usually this is lush forest and you cannot see the bare ground. Some of the gully lines contained species of rainforest plants. There weren’t many birds to be seen or hear. It was eerily silent.
This ridge line is showing signs of recovery. The ridge behind is what it will look like again.
One of the first to appear after a fire are the fungi. There were a number of these tiny orange fungi dotted through the bush.
This fungus was sending a message of love and hope
The colours of the new foliage is amazing. From a burnt stump life springs forth.
Everywhere flowers appeared. I must confess we did go over the fence and scramble about the gravelly soil looking around at the wonderful flowers and whatever else we found. Most of the flowers are quite small up to 15mm or half an inch.
This was the first flower I found as it was right beside the car when I opened the door.
So many varieties of Pea Plants that seemed to grow out of the rocks.
Along with flowers come the insects. Not only bees pollinate flowers, wasps do as well.
A Blue-banded Bee really enjoyed getting right into the flower
A Teddy Bear Bee was moving from flower to flower quickly.
Another wasp on a Billy Buttons flower. It was lovely to see small clumps of Billy Button flowers scattered throughout the lookout.
A wonderful find was a Nobbi sunning on a rock. This male has his breeding colours on. They are distantly related to Bearded Dragons. Not long after I took this shot he was off a great speed. When I looked in book to try and identify who he is, the book said that Nobbi’s run fast. Well they certainly do!
As there was a good amount of rainfall in February, the sound of water rushing was an unusual sound at the lookout. Normally you can’t see this waterfall cascading down the mountain and plunging into the stream below.
I was so glad that this old tree stump survived the fire with a little bit of scorching. The “mouth” is the notch they cut with an axe to slot a board in and cut higher up the tree. It would take four or five people holding hands around the tree to gauge the size of this old beauty. I would miss his spooky face when I head up the mountain from my place to Raspberry Lookout.
Thanks for coming with me and having a picnic at Raspberry Lookout.
The featured photo is from 2017
Share this:
Light the night
Nancy’s Photo a Week Challenge: Light the Night
Natural light or man made light? You can be the judge.
Our Moon gives a lovely light at night
A bit of both
Fire lights the night
A party boat glows on the bay
A man, a torch and a Brush-tailed Possum
Big Ben has its own lights
A man, a car light and an owl
A man. a woman, a torch and a Moon Flower
Share this:
Durranbah – Fire Recovery part1
I have been out and about but not far into the bush as there are limbs falling and the ground is quite wet now so some burnt trees could still topple. These are in the area around the house. This area was just burnt ground with some blackened timber. The unburnt leaves have fallen since the fire went through on the 6th December.
Some of the plants I know what they are and have named. I am going cross-eyed trying to find all the plants in my books. Many of the flowers are small some up to 10mm or half an inch. There is quite a few photos.
The start of a Native Wisteria emerging from the soil
Fungi were the first plants to appear. The Finger Fungi is small and struggling. There’s a bit of Lichen too.
The Golden Lily is showing as bright dots of yellow through the bush. The flowers are 20 to 40mm and in places they are in clumps of flowers. There are about five buds waiting to open here
The Lomandras are in clumps or individual plants and all are flowering
The Lomandra flowers are tiny balls on a tall spike emerging from the tough strappy leaves
A different Lomandra.
Not sure what this plant is
A small group of plants
I should know what this plant is but cannot remember
Some plants emerge from the roots that survived the fire. This could be a shrub to small tree a Cheese Tree possibly.
The growth surrounding the burnt trunk. A lot of Australian plants start life red then turn green as they mature.
Another hardy Eucalypt grows. They are fire hardy plants and there is a sort of root, a lignotuber at the base of the tree that conserves energy and when it’s time, the tree will commence growing. Many species can re-sprout from buds under their bark.
Another tiny flower. These are on slender stalks and in clumps of tiny white flowers. 
This is a ground cover that spreads along the forest floor. Bright dots of purple catch your eye.
These yellow flowers are ones the Native Stingless Bees love. Again around 10mm across.
Almost a clover like flower but opens up as you can see in the background
There are lots of these purple flowers on tall spikes and multiple flowers.
I think this may belong to the pea family. So pretty with many flowers along the stalk
Lots of clumps of these flowers and bees buzzing around.
A close-up of the flowers in the above clump.
If anyone knows the names of any of the flowers or plants please let me know.
Share this:
Smoking: a thing of the past
Debbies Six Word Saturday
The fire and smoking log are no more
For those who haven’t been following my Six Word Saturday saga, here is a recap
Fifteen days later I’m still smoking
The fire’s smoke darken the sky
Share this:
Firelight
Beckys square photo challenge: Light
Come on over to Becky’s and join in the fun
Here’s the rule:
All you really need remember about this photographic challenge is that a square is a rectangle with four equal sides!
Yes the photo format is Square. Look on your camera setting before you get totally inspired and set it to 1:1 There you have it Square Format. If you forget crop your image to Square
Share this:
Inferno
This afternoons rain solved this problem (or I have finally stopped smoking)
Debbies Six Word Saturday
Yes, for those who have been playing along since early December, a what I would have called a tropical storm happened this afternoon (11th Jan for those elsewhere in the world) I am wet and happy
Share this:
The Recovery of Durranbah – New life part one
It has been six weeks since the fire devastated my place. Today was the first time I have been able to get about my property and see the extent of the damage the fire has done. I went mainly to check the fences as they are the things that have been severely impacted by fire.
The best thing was that I didn’t find any large animals that had died from the fire. I didn’t go poking around in burnt logs and under things so smaller animals and reptiles may have not survived.
I did find the recovery of plants starting to commence.
A Eucalypts lignotuber sends new growth from the ground. I love the red colour.
A burnt tree sprouts new growth from its trunk.
Early signs are often red gradually turning green.
This gold bummed ant was very protective of its tree. After a while it actually leapt onto the camera lens
Other ants were carrying treasures back to the nest
I did find the Bower Birds burnt bower which was near to my house. 
His blue treasures to impress the females a bit charred and molten.
Some people have asked how did the waterhole fare. The Lomandras in the water course have all started to sprout.
The rain on Christmas Day filled the waterhole and it still has a good amount of water. I am not too sure about the quality of the water. On the left under the fallen Brush Box tree is the rock I sit on to watch and photograph the birds. On the right hand side that tree has fallen across the track I use to get down to the waterhole. The rocky gully where the water comes into the waterhole has lots of trees over it but the small water hole up there a bit has water as well. The Powerful Owls weren’t around much to my disappointment.
This is what the water hole looked like
Dragonflies were flitting around one of the dams near the house.
I was pleased to see the White-winged Chough family patrolling through the bush. It looks like they have had a good year as there was around three chicks. I counted eleven birds. Last year when I saw a flock there were seven. Choughs are quite good at enticing other Choughs from other family groups into their family.
I was dismayed to see the big Ironbark tree still on fire. It will be a while until this tree stops burning. It is surrounded by a big burnt area so I am not concerned about it getting out of control. Unfortunately my tracks through the bush have so many trees over them I am unable to get anywhere near it and if I did I have no idea how I would be able to cut through the log to separate the burning bit from the rest of the tree. The tree is at least one meter in diameter.
So when I am next able to get about the property, I’ll write again about the recovery of Durranbah. I probably shouldn’t have walked as far as I did. I hurt my back a few weeks ago and am starting to feel better. I did come back to the house, have a shower, a bit of lunch and then went to bed for a few hours. Still am a bit sore still but the constant showers for the last three hours has been lovely. Not much rain I think but steady soaking rain has made me feel a lot better.
For Cee’s On the Hunt for Joy Challenge – Get Outside
LPM – Photo Adventure – Rural Life
