There was a prescribed burn in part of the South Meadow recently. Here are some photos I took as I wandered around investigating the aftermath. When I first arrived, a coyote was already on the scene checking it out. At one point I noticed it eating something off the ground. When it eventually meandered across the meadow and into the wetlands, I went over to see what it was eating. Interestingly, I found a pile of charred blackberries on which it was foraging. I looked for grasshoppers that had been toasted in the fire. A sign out at the arboretum says that native people used to collect grasshoppers after they burned grassland areas. I had trouble locating any grasshoppers. I found a few by following yellow jackets that were harvesting them. Surprisingly, I did find quite a few millipedes that had died from the fire. The third photo reminds me of a glowing ember and looks like a praying mantis cocoon. As I walked around, I occasionally flushed a small moth that patiently allowed its photo to be taken. Moths are quiet and mysterious. There were small spiders roaming around. As the sun lowered in the sky, I could see their silk strands had already extensively been sewn across the ground. The teasel plant is an invasive biennial plant that has established itself in the meadow. I imagined that a major reason for the burn was to kill many of the first-year teasel plants growing and the seed heads from this year. It rained shortly after the fire, and the teasel rosettes immediately began to sprout new green leaves. So the fire didn’t kill them. Also, the fire didn’t burn the woody flower stalks and the seed heads at the top of them from this year. So those seeds are still viable. Why didn’t the folks who performed this prescribed burn make sure these seed heads were burned? I scraped away the blackened grass and noticed that there was a small layer of grass that was unburned and many various plant seeds remained unharmed on the ground. Under the deer scat the grass was unburned. I also turned over rocks in the meadow and saw that the ground underneath was protected and unburned. I saw flocks of juncos out there eating the seeds. In the last photo, it shows the edge of the burn. The unburned area is thickly thatched with grass. So the burn did accomplish opening up the ground to allow more plants to sprout and grow. It will be interesting to see what plants repopulate the area. Will more native plants be able to grow or will nonnative plants dominate?
These are a few of my observations and thoughts I wanted to quickly scribble down to pique your interest. I would love to be on the team of people who investigate the flora and fauna after a forest fire. I am sure there are so many fascinating discoveries to be made.