Today I drove 30 - 35 kilometers north of my hometown to see what's new in an area that was burning on the 20th of August this year.
The place is now considerably greener than it was two months ago when I was there last time.
I photographed quite a few fresh new plants today ...
... and a couple of insects too.
Quite unexpectedly ...
... I even came across some mushrooms.
The place in question is an area around the village of Shtokovtzi, more or less halfway between the towns of Vodnjan and Svetvinchenat.
I stopped by the side of the road, the main road that leads from the city of Pula, through Vodnjan, Svetvinchenat, and Zminj, to the city of Pazin ...
... and started exploring through the lens of my camera.
In this post, I'll show you all I found today. But now, before continuing, I'll put here the links to the two older posts that show the place in the morning after the fire and ten days later.
Here you can see how things looked the next day, while the following link ...
@borjan/ten-days-later-after-the
... can take you to the post that shows the same place ten days after the event.
This ichneumon wasp was photographed today ...
... on the juicy green foliage ...
... of the Pentanema spiraeifolium plants ...
... that formed what looks like a lovely green island surrounded by short grass and other low-growing herbaceous plants.
When it comes to the wasp, I'm not sure about the exact species ...
... but I'm pretty sure that the genus is Erigorgus, and the family is definitively Ichneumonidae.
Here you can enjoy the pattern created by the new herbaceous plants that grew on the burned ground.
In this photograph, you can take a look at the same scene, but from a different angle. Not far from there ...
... I found a mushroom.
A big, meaty, and edible Agaricus macrosporus mushroom. While taking these photographs ...
... I noticed a minuscule, mosquito-like insect on the top of the mushroom's cap covered with tiny droplets.
Can't tell you the name of the species but the family is certainly Chironomidae.
In this photograph, the focus is on the scenery across the street.
The burned shrubs and trees had been recently cut down ...
... and then cut again, into smaller pieces.
The piles of black branches gave an unusual feel to the landscape. It looked a bit like an art installation with some kind of ecological message.
The cutting of the trees revealed some interesting structures ...
... that also looked like some kind of art.
I found a nice variety of them.
It looks like there is plenty of individuality among these plants.
Most of the stumps were surrounded by new leafy shoots. When I got closer to that fresh greenery ...
... I found some insects on the twigs and leaves. Here you can see the Dufouria chalybeata, a fly from the Tachinidae family.
This small, slightly elongated ladybug is the Hippodamia variegata.
There was a shield bug near this tiny droplet of some dense, milk-like liquid. In the following set of photographs ...
... you can take a look at the bug. This is the Palomena prasina, commonly known as the common green shieldbug.
Here you can see a lovely leafhopper from the Cicadellidae family. I'm not completely sure about the species but it looks a lot like the Avericerus vittifrons.
Some of the young shoots were slightly red and pink ...
... and on some stumps, the new foliage wasn't green at all.
These red leaves look pretty cool and give a nice contribution to the variety of colors in this place.
Here you can take a look from above at some green shoots around the stump.
Asparagus acutifolius is a plant that likes places like this.
The edible wild asparagus shoots appear in big quantities during the springtime, but if the conditions are good enough, you can find a few of them in the autumn too.
Today I collected enough for a modest meal. After the winter, the shoots will grow like crazy on this burned terrain.
Here you can see another wild asparagus shoot and a friend who was there with me.
That shoot grew in an interesting place.
Near the stump. So, from a certain angle, it looked like the asparagus grew from the remains of the burned tree. After taking these photographs and collecting about twenty shoots, I decided to continue exploring stuff on the other side of the road.
On my way there, I stopped to photograph this lovely piece of garbage.
Some kind of glass that looked a bit like a colorful mineral structure when seen up close.
Soon I took this photograph, I cross the road and then ...
... and continued toward the small pond surrounded by fresh green vegetation.
I found more mushrooms there.
Just like the Agaricus macrosporus shown earlier in the post, these are also edible. And also Agaricus. agaricus silvaticus is the name of the species.
The vegetation was covered with dew ...
... and so were the mushrooms.
I found droplets of various sizes...
... on the tops of the caps.
The droplets look slightly different on different surfaces.
Here you can see the lovely lines of droplets on the fresh young leaves of the wild rose.
After some more sniffing around, five or six meters further, I found more mushrooms.
These small inkcaps aren't poisonous but there isn't much meaty stuff on them. They quickly dissolve into a dark liquid. So I let them be.
Some minutes later, while searching through a mix of fresh grass and wild strawberry plants ...
... I found two insects.
Like many times before, I can't tell you the name of the species here. But I'm pretty sure that the genus is Sitona. The family is definitively Curculionidae. In the following photograph ...
... you can see a froghopper. The Philaenus spumarius from the Aphrophoridae family.
On the way back to the car, I stopped to photograph the Medicago coronata flowers. Some minutes later, I was driving back home.
The following links will take you to the sites with more information about some of the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/7452
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitona
https://www.google.hr/search?q=genus+Erigorgus&sxsrf=ALiCzsbEGoRmnryRgTR64wNT3FVhrC2-cw:1666729779719&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFntOjnPz6AhWxxIsKHaOVBtgQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1669&bih=812&dpr=1
https://www.plantea.com.hr/kracun/
https://www.google.hr/search?q=Chironomidae&hl=en&sxsrf=ALiCzsYc9WHfPR5E1-hNp2kz63KKYIquEQ:1666729892705&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizssPZnPz6AhXososKHX-3Bc0Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1669&bih=812&dpr=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dufouria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippodamia_variegata
https://champignouf.com/
AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.