Additional Reasons To Keep Vehicles Away From Lupine Area

 During the ongoing monitoring of the emergence of this year's crop of Scrub Lupine seedlings I feel vindicated about making it a point to emphasize the need to keep vehicles out of the path near the original planting area.

That's because that seems to be where the bulk of this year's crop lies.

As you can see by the flags, they are spread all the across the path.

I also checked the volunteer area farther west. No seedlings were present. Probably needs its first burn. It is the only section of the north tract that has never been burned.

   

Lupines Slowly Emerge

 I have been visiting the preserve more of less weekly to check on the emergence of Scrub Lupine seedlings in the various planting areas.

As of today, 21 seedlings have appeared and been flagged. There is also a single surviving seedling from 2023.

Most of them are in the older planting areas, portions of which are still more open and free of leaf litter than the third planting area. That area is badly overgrown and needs some serious management attention, though it is unclear how soon that will occur. It still contains some mature plants that appear to be healthy and should bloom again this spring if they survive.

I have visited the volunteer sights farther west a couple of times and so far have seen no seedlings.

That section has never been burned. It was not burned because the lupines were discovered there just before the planned landscape burn that occurred in 2008.

I was wondering whether fire would result in more seedlings popping up from the old seed bank in that section of the property. No Scrub Lupine emerged anywhere else on the property after the fire.

Blue Lupine did emerge a couple of times in the sandhill area where a relic population of Clitoria fragrans survives, but it was just a single plant and did not persist.

 

Merry Christmas & 2017 hit and misses

The scrub holly berries are finally red enough for  Christmas, so I feel in the holiday spirt
This has been a mixed year.
Despite a pretty good crop of seedlings last winter, none survived the spring drought.
The good news is that it appears some seedlings are emerging already, about a month ahead of when I expect to find them.
More good news is that FWC is burning some areas that have never been burned since the state purchased the property and even reburned a previously burned area.
Judging by the proliferation of cuts across the landscape, more burning will occur as soon as staff and authorizations are available.
I'm still finding a new pieces of debris exposed by the burn, but believe I have removed the bulk of them.

Fire continues on north side

FWC's fire crew, with assistance of Auburndale Fire Department, continued burning the northern sandhill habitat areas today.
I spent part of the morning collecting debris the fire on Thursday had uncovered.
Most of it consisted of bottles and cans, but I found an abandoned TV, the bottom drawer of a stove and an  old tire.
I found a Black Racer and a Ringneck Snake taking refuge under some debris and saw a Glass Snake Lizard in the open and one that wasn't quick enough for the fire.
I'll check back over the weekend or more debris.
Also, some FWC folks reported seeing a coyote, which is a first for the property.

Fire returns to the preserve

FWC fire crew was at the preserve this morning for a first-ever burn in the northwestern section.
This is a series of small, relatively cool burn to clear underbrush.
I was told a crew will come in later with chainsaws to clear some of the oaks to open the area to longleaf pine, which should be the dominant large tree in this part of the property.
On my way to take a look at the fire, I flushed three Wilson's snipes, which sometimes stop here during migration.
I got pictures of Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Northern Mockingbird, but couldn't get a shot of Blue Jays to expand the iNaturalist list for this site.

Eek! It's a Shriek, er Shrike

The open, burned landscape has attracted a new bird species.

Today, I saw the first Loggerhead Shrike I'd ever seen on the property. They aren't a forest bird.

I recently saw an American Kestrel, too,. Actually, I saw two, but the first one appeared to chase away the second one. I have not seen any kestrels since, so it may have been a bird of passage or an opportunist.

Leveling the piles

Now that a few weeks have passed and it has rained, I've decided to level the burn piles.

I've also found some trash and carried it offsite.

I've also found a few other pieces of trash as I' ve been walking through the burned areas, but not a lot, which I feel good about.

Another thing. Even after this time and some rain, one pile still had a small hot spot.

Rain and regrowth

After a rainless October, ww had .0.80 inch this week.

Following the burn, a few sprigs of grass are emerging. So are saw palmettos.
Garberia is blooming now, which is especially noticeable in the othewise charred landscape.

I'm still finding some trash.

The ash heaps at the burn piles should be leveled. I'll deal with in soon.

Smoke in the ashes

I went out to finish collecting some trash I'd found the other day.
A burn pile was nearby and so I began to level it with my rake.
That was mistake. The embers were stil live beneath and it started smoking.
I reburied it.
We may get some rain next week, which will extinguish it.

The lupine are OK after fire

Just a followup from Friday's controlled burn. All of the lupine patches, two planted and two wild, came out OK.

The intriguing question is whether more will sprout this winter.

Just when you think you have things down at this place, a surprise appears. I still can't get over it.

Prescribed fire followup

Prescribed fire turns out not to be a one-day affair.

Today Mike Perry was back on the site checking on hot spots to make sure there were no unexpected restarts of the fire. There were a few smokers, mostly stumps and an odd log, though he found one spot where buried carpet had ignited.

I meanwhile, was cruising the boundary with buckets and wheelbarrow in search of exposed debris that had previously been missed, I found about two truckloads worth.

Some other observations. The burn was pretty spotty in places. The western section, which frankly needed fire the least because some of it had burned a few years ago, was burned well. The eastern section, which had been heavily forested before the gyrochopping, was spottier.

Mike said one problem was that FWC may have waited too long after gyrochopping and the canopy, such as it is, was too far from the ground to carry the fire very well.

It was a good day to burn

Today was the first day Lake Blue had been burned in a planned way--ever.

I was an observer, watching the professionals at work..

I learned that the first thing you need to do is to burn a "black line," a line of burned area next to the fire lane that will help to contain the overall burn so that it doesn't jump the fire lane as easily.

Today's burn was sligthly complicated by my discovery last weekend of two spots where Scrub Lupine had sprouted for the first time ever documented by anyone to our knowledge. As a result of the fire more lupine may sprout. We just don't know.

The idea was to protect the plants we know about from fire until they've had a chance to bloom and produce seeds.

The other thing I learned a little more about is why wind matters. I knew wind direction mattered because you plan who the wind will affect. In this case, the plan was to make sure most of the smoke avoided the nearby residences as much as possible. The results were mixed. In the afternoon the wind shifted and was coming from the north, which meant it was pretty smoky for awhile in one of the adjacent neighborhoods.

The other factor is wind speed. You like it to have a little speed, 10 mph or so, I was told, to move the fire quickly through the landscape.

In addition, you want the fire mostly out by dark so smoke doesn't settle and become a major nuisance or safety hazard.

There was another interestsing effect. At various times of the day all of his had insects land on us. They varied. There were treehoppers, mantises, grasshoppers, beetles and true bugs.

Finally, I will obviously and not unexpectedly have more tash to cleanup now that I can see it more clearly on the bare, burned ground.

I've been waiting and hoping for this for years. It was a good day. Thanks, everyone.

Veni, Vidi, Ignis

The fire crew led by Mike Perry and Shane Belson arrived as advertised today. The burn was still going on as of late afternoon. I'll post photos and provide more details tonight.

Preparing for the fire

I learned this morning that the planned fire will happen tomorrow.
I helped Juliet tape off the area where I discovered the Scrub Lupine last weekend.
It will not be burned because the plants have not bloomed yet and put out seeds.
No one knows what kind of seed bank is out there.
By spring we'll have a better idea.

New bird, new plant

While I was looking for butterflies today, I flushed a Wilson's Snipe, which is usually a bird you see near water, though not always. I'll add it to the vert list.

More interesting was the discovery of what appears to be a couple of small groups of scrub lupine, far from the introduced populations that are the result of seedlings propagated at Bok Tower.

If this proves out, it will be another previously undocumented population, one that has happily sprouted on protected land.

I guess the question is how the discovery will affect the boundaries of the planned burn since none of the plants has bloomed and the extent of the seed bank is unknown. I'll leave that discussion to the experts.

Fire.Yes!

I received news this week that a landscape and pile burn will be permitted by our friends at the Florida Division of Forestry. I guess the prep work paid off.

I was rereading parts of the paper Eric Menges and Doria Gordon wrote on fire management and its various artificial substitutes today. I think the evidence is clear fire has no real substitute in the long run.

The gyrotracking probably had to happen because of the thickness of the forest and the proximity of the residences, though I might have suggested a little more restraint to leave habitat islands and snags for local wildlife.

Anyway, the burn is tentatively scheduled sometime in October, depending on weather. The wind has to be right to keep the smoke away from the neighbors as much as possible.

The residents will receive letters, but I'm trying to make personal contact to make sure everyone knows about it.

The fire some time

I received a call today about a meeting this week between FWC and DOF folks about a possible landscape burn in parts of the north tract.

The wet late summer is a plus. We have a La Nina system building, I've heard, which could mean a dryer-than-normal winter and spring. Snoooze and you lose. It would be instructive to see the result and get rid of the piles, too.

It may requre some PR with the neighbors to keep them informed and to make sure no one has any respiratory problems.

Nevertheless, it will be exciting to see if any dormant seed banks are revived. It might help the beetle survey next year or in some future year.

Finally, I wonder if there's really much undiscovered trash out there.

Lake Blue nature tour in 2011

During a preliminary brainstorming session today about a planned multi-day nature festival in Polk County next year, one of the possible field trips that was discussed was bringing people to Lake Blue.

It is one of the few Winter Haven Ridge preserves there are.

It was on the vanguard of the Scrub Lupine recovery effort and by next year it will be clearer how that's going.

It demonstrates the challenge of managing scrub in an urban environment. The mechanical treatment is still controversial it seems, since I was told last weekend that there are no plans to repeat that in the south tract. There are still rumors of fire for the cleared sections of the north tract.

It also will present a chance to see some scrub plants and familiarize people wioth scrub in general in a quick and convenient way.

Nothing's committed yet, but it's an interesting idea.

Fire lane open again

I stopped by this afternoon for the first time in a week or so to find the fire lanes had been disked again.

I spent about an hour picking up exposed trash along the first 100 yards or so. I filled three trash bags and two 5-gallon buckets.

i was thinking of coming through with a strong rake and seeing what other trash near the surface I could churn up to clean up the area while it is still open.

The fact that the work was done so quickly after I mentioned it to Bill Parken at FWC was also encouraging. This site really needsa good fire lane because the homes are so close and most of them are mobile homes that would go up pretty quick if the flames reached them.

Moving the rocks

I finally moved the pile of concrete pieces that I had piled up by the First Avenue gate from the nearby pile and ferried them to the main entrance to line the driveway.

I hauled out some other assorted trash.

Hauling will be hard work for a while. Contractors cleared the fire lanes again. I'm kind of in shock at the amount of work, but at least there's a functioning fire lane.

That's good for the neighbors and it's good for any planned burns in the future. I've been told that staff is still completing certification, which is reassuring. This is not a place where we'd want a fire to go rogue.

I noticed another gate is missing its heavy chain, but the lock is still there.