Fun to read our old threads and compare isn't it?
We are greeting this Autumn (Fall) with great sadness. Our mountains -North of us, burned with a way-too-hot, way-too extensive bush fire. The mountains are an isolated range with no native plant communities left around them. Not all areas of Australia are able to cope with fire. The effect on wildlife has been devastating. The trees burned into their roots and the nesting hollows are gone. It takes about 300-500 years for a mature tree to form a hollow and many of our birds and mamals need them. In the burned areas (60-80% of the mountains)there are not even any places to put man-made nesting-boxes. In the swamps the peat is still burning. Foxes and other introduced predators will move in to clean up any animal that happened to survive the fire and now has no cover. There will be recovery of some plant life but nobody knows if the rare and beautiful eco-system will ever be as species-rich again.