After the Fire 6 - The Silence of the Bush

Near Betka Beach. 3 weeks post-fire. Smoke haze has hidden the ocean in the background

 The bush was never meant to be silent

The trill, squawk or chatter of birdsong, the buzz and twang of insects, the reptilian rustle in piles of leaves, the sudden thud thud and crackle of wallabies or roos fleeing through undergrowth – the bush is usually a noisy place. To walk through the bush with only the crunch of your own shoes and the sound of your own breath in your ears is an unsettling experience. It’s devastating to creep along silent trails that were once so familiar and that rang with life. 

Even worse - the trees, those solid, dependable guardians of the paths and trails, may be absent or unrecognisable. Familiar landmark trees have become unfamiliar, if they're there at all. Sometimes it’s worse, somehow, to recognise them - old friends unclothed, blackened, crippled or felled. That big tree out near the Pony Club – a Grey fantail scolded me once from a branch that is no longer there, and there I watched a pair of Spotted pardalotes harvesting lerps. That empty space overhead, near the water storage facility, is where a pair of Mistletoe birds enchanted me in the spring, and the Eagle Tree behind my house - a tall skeleton that provided an excellent lookout spot for raptors - has been completely obliterated. Gone without a trace.

It's not without a an eerie, pared-back beauty but it's not how it's supposed to be.

The stark black lines of a charcoaled melaleuca forest thrusting upwards from silvery ash-covered ground 

The bush, however, is full of surprises. The regrowth of vegetation is almost magical.  Buds and shoots are bursting through blackened bark. Insects are returning. The birds that eat insects are returning. With the birds comes the birdsong. It's happening, slowly but surely - resurrection in action.

Tree ferns sprouting on Genoa Road

Grass trees re-emerging

Epicormic buds sprout differently on different types of trees – some appear in random clumps, others like the even fuzz along the length of a man’s arm, so that they look a bit like large furry pipecleaners - and still others appear to encircle a trunk in a delicate spiral pattern.

When Banksia cones burn, the seed casings open like golden mouths to spit out the seeds of their rebirth.

Swathes of burnt bush add layers of colour across the landscape in broad strokes of umber, gold, rust, sepia and deep black. Burnt vegetation has more subtleties of colour than you can imagine, and I’m pretty sure there are more than fifty shades of brown.

The beautiful Betka River

The spicy smell of regenerating bush – that warm eucalyptus scent with just a hint of smoke behind it - is actually exquisite, especially if there’s a waft of morning dampness to give it a bit of tang.  It's enough to put a smile on anybody's face.