Woodland close-ups

I'd been boxing so i figured I could walk down to the Reserve and thus take my camera.

Kairos is looking more healthy than last time. Astonishing, given the drought, but a relief.

The thing that strikes me is the rather terrifying quiet. There seem to be fewer insects and fewer birds.

I sat with the tree and the thought that came to me was "The Earth arches up passionately even as the sky bears down."

As there were no creatures to photograph and the place looks dried out and rather bleak, I used the lens ring thing to get some close-ups.

The corridors of bark beetles....

A rather lovely cone....

Fascinating filaments....

And feathers....

I thought there had been a raptor strike near Kairos, but as I walked through the trees, I saw feathers everywhere... pigeon and mainly rook... If it were the moult I'd have thought I would have noticed this before... I wondered if in the heat and the dry the birds were dropping, as would the absent rain, from the sky. Gravity rather than grace.