"Active flame front of the Zaca Fire, the second largest fire on record in California," near Santa Barbara, photographed by John Newman, U.S. Forest Service photo, from the Interagency Incident Web, 2008. Larger.
In some regions of California controlled burning has become a controversial means of managing too abundant fuel loads—a human solution that mimics a natural process.
Margaret Millar—a prominent writer of mysteries—was also a lover of the outdoors. Here, she ruminates on the effect of the 1964 Coyote Fire on the chaparral landscape near Santa Barbara.
Throughout the centuries a number of ways have evolved for chaparral plants to survive burning. Some, like green-bark ceanothus, sprout new leaves directly from the "dead" stumps. Some have woody crowns or burls at ground level, like toyon, or underground, like Eastwood manzanita, which is back to full size within a few years. Others have seeds with a hard coat that must be split open by fire, or else soft-coated seeds which need very high temperatures to trigger their internal chemistry. Among the plants with seeds requiring fire in order to germinate are some of the most dominant and important in the chaparral group of this region—chamise, big berry manzanita, laurel sumac, hoary leaf ceanothus, big pod ceanothus, suger bush, and lemonade bush. All but chamise are frequently grown in cultivated gardens.
After the Coyote fire I hiked around the burned areas, observing as a bird watcher, not a botanist. But I couldn't help noticing that greenery started to reappear almost as soon as the earth had cooled.
Margaret Millar published The Birds and Beasts Were There, observations of animal life, in 1967.
Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, American white pelican. Larger.
We can all agree that California attracts—and keeps—all sorts of geniuses, scientific genuises, literary geniuses, and yes, even feathered geniuses.
Mystery writer Margaret Millar was a passionate bird watcher, and for her one of the most enthralling avian creature was the American white pelican, a genius of the sky.
Almost all birds fly, but only a few aerial geniuses can soar—that is, rise skyward without wing-flapping, using only winds or thermal updrafts. The white pelican is one. These huge silent birds, which share with the California condor an enormous wingspread, more than eight feet, and a reputation for gentleness and quietness, are capable of fantastic feats of soaring. At the slightest invitation of the wind they will rise high in the air and put on a performance that looks not like mere play but like an inspired and exuberant romp of angels.
White pelicans do not, like condors, cover great distances in the search for food, nor do they have the brown pelican's habit of spotting a fish from the air and diving down into the water to catch it. They feed while swimming leisurely along the surface, finding small, delicate tidbits which their greedy brown brothers would disdain. It is the simplist and easiest way to forage and the energy they save can be, perhaps must be, used for the kind of activity we call play.
Margaret Millar's charming observations of bird life in and around Santa Barbara were published as The Birds and Beasts Were There in 1967.
below to hear radio segment.
