But I was rather happy with these images.


What it's about is my second visit to Kairos, the Mystical Oak.
Sadly, I had left my phone in the car and so I could not photograph the evidence. I will get pictures on my third visit.
I was with a friend from university and it was she who noticed this. There are about six branches which erupt violently from the stem (one from a large branch). We use "violently" advisedly, as these shoots appear to have burst forth through the bark with force. But then all have died, shaded out by the tree's later growth.
This led us to wonder if the environment had changed dramatically - like when the reservoir was created - such that the tree felt it prudent to have alternative directions to grow in? Or perhaps at that time conditions were optimal for rapid spreading, a situation that subsequently changed?
Later, imagining the oak, I thought that the way these now dead branches appear to have emerged "violently" could be due to the fact that in the dying back of these limbs, the bark came off and around the joint the stem's bark has grown "lips" to seal the holes and protect the living wood of the trunk.
But I am still left thinking of those six (or so) branches - all at the same height - which all died at a similar size, suggesting that they appeared and died at the same time as one another.
It's also notable that the tree has these surface-visible roots, which could suggest that the ground was too hard to go deep or that the area directly under the tree was unpropitious and the tree had to extend the range of his underground network?
I considered Kairos as an acorn - the seed that crystallises the individual potential - and then germinating in a place where the growing into the environment demanded all this adaptation and change, all this ranging out and dying back, then this questing up. Already parts of the tree - leaves and dead twigs and branches - are becoming soil, becoming pure environment.
This tree has flushed out earlier than some surrounding oaks. Is this purely a genetic factor, the gift of the seed? Is this tree more vital than some of the others, healthier as a result of the synergy between Kairos and place? Or is this a sign of stress? I don't think that last is the case as the trees with Acute Oak Decline have not flushed out so much.
The questions don't have answers: the tree gains in mystique!
Those are WONDERFUL geese photos!
And I like the observations and questioning, and that Kairos remains a tree of mystery. 🤔