Sunday, March 16, 2008

More Trees

It doesn't seem to take much for a tree, especially a gum tree, to start up again. Maybe that's because of bush fires, because you will often see a burnt out area with blackened gums where the trunks are literally blooming with new growth. This tree has been down for nearly a year, but with a couple of decent rainfalls recently, we're seeing quite a bit of this new growth from broken trunks here and there.
We talked to a local man recently who told us that our property (and adjacent forest) was totally burned out in 1951. This explains why a lot of our trees are not very big and old, of a similar height and girth, and all look like they sprinted upwards at once to grab the light.
This means that we don't have many old trees with holes which is, of course, where wildlife such as owls and possums live. However, I spotted these down the southern end, and have since found more to the west.
I'm also finding a lot of things on the ground that someone once told me was 'owl vomit' - in other words, what the owl spits out after eating small animals. However, what I'm finding are things that are full of insect casings. They don't look like scats. Any clues, anyone?
My guess is that this is one of the original old trees from 1951. Its insides are mostly burned, and the rest of the tree is dead, but it's still standing, as are several others nearby. They are all large trees, which makes me wonder what kind of forest was there before the 51 fire. Very sad if it was largely trees this size, but it's also possible that it was only the biggest ones that stayed standing and the small ones that went.

1 comment:

Duncan said...

Hi Sherryl, first visit, sound like owl pellets to me, regurgitated inedible food particles. If they're full of insect bits they could be from a Boobook, or a Frogmouth, I guess they do it too. Currawongs also regurgitate pellets of seeds etc from fruit they've been eating.

 
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