Damaged

In my third favourite local wood (there are no poplars, but I can actually walk through it), I came across a lot of signs of damage to trees - whole branches that had rotted off and were decomposing, holes in the trunks, crowns that had fallen off at some point.

Yet the trees were still alive.

In the light below these aged survivors, newcomers were making their way.

The holes would provide homes for some creatures, while others sought to create their own... though this one seemed to have been abandoned.

I look at this wood and think how it could have done with some TLC over the years, as the Wildlife Trust care for the woods under their control.

Yet the birds seemed content with it just how it is.

Merlin claimed that there were Blackcaps and Blackbirds, Robins, Great and Blue Tits, Chaffinches, Chiffchaffs, Spotted Flycatchers, Treecreepers, Crows, Wrens, Pigeons... more than I can remember. Yesterday a Garden Warbler sang and sang in my first favourite wood - a Willow Warbler too, and Goldfinches and Goldcrests. In the fields, Yellowhammers and Whitethroats and Skylarks.

In my garden, the baby Starlings now visit with their parents. It's chaos out there.

And Clare - oh I am so jealous - has this baby to care for - he fell from his nest above her yard before he could do much more than flutter.

She is Dr Dolittle, after all. Why shouldn't the baby Crows flock to her when they need help? (Oh, I am so jealous. At least the Poplars can't fly away.)

I saw a Starling steal a grub from the Mistle Thrush in the park - she chased him around as he pecked at the ground and got lucky. I saw a Yellowhammer flutter down the side of the field and thought he couldn't fly until another Yellowhammer and someone else (small, brown) popped out of the wheat to the surprise of all three and they flew off into the hedge in a flittering pursuit.

I heard the Ash by the river turn wind into sound. And I wished I could sink into the soil and stay.

What in this world is most damaged?