21 Wildfire time (roughly corresponds to summer): hot, stormy, dry, northerly winds, long days. Cicadas singing, active reptiles, and cod fishing indicates that it’s too hot for Djandak Wi and indicates the start of wild lightning fires. Most grasses begin browning and drying, apart from C4 grasses like buwatj which are actively growing, flowering, and seeding; tuber plants (including gitjawil matom) are entering dormancy; cherry ballarts, dhurung wurkuk (Dianellas), and elderberries are fruiting; and kangaroo apples and prickly currant fruits ripen. Bats are actively catching insects; eagles breed; snakes, lizards, and other reptiles are active; butterflies are abundant; and kangaroos breed. The Southern Cross is high in the sky. Germination, growth, and flowering time (roughly corresponds to deep spring and early summer): windy, warm, raining, storms. Flowering/seeding murnong and gitjawil matom (chocolate lilies and vanilla lilies), and the end of crayfish breeding (and making holes) indicates the end of the Djandak Wi season. Djandak comes alive with colourful flower displays of murnong, lilies (including gitjawil matom – chocolate and vanilla lilies), witji (Lomandras), dhurung wurkuk (Dianellas), orchids, buwatj (kangaroo grass), and coranderrks; and fruits form on kangaroo apples and appleberry vines. Swift parrots migrate to feed on flowering red ironbark trees. Orchestras of animal calls, including pobblebonks and young birds, fill the air; pobblebonks start to nest; and blue wrens attack windows. The Orion constellation sets in the western sky at sunrise.
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