Stressed

I reckon our woodlands are quite dangerous places to be just lately. Walking through Hirst Woods I noticed how many fallen boughs there are - and then came across this enormous shard of beech tree, newly fallen across the main path. It appears that the tree had started to rot quite high up the trunk, as you can see from the black mess in the photo below. Presumably the weight of leaves and branches became too great for a tree stressed by drought and rot. Whatever the reason, literally half of the tree has come crashing down - trunk, branches and leaves - leaving a long scar where wood has peeled away from the trunk below the rotten area. It looked very dramatic and it's perhaps fortunate that nobody, apparently, was walking beneath it at the time. 

'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?'

Well, I still don't know the answer to this question! 

A reminder, too, that I am also posting - not every day but fairly often - on my other blog HERE, which is a bit more personal, reflective and whimsical than this one. I've turned off comments on that one, because of its more personal nature but you're welcome to read and 'follow' it.