There’s a dark force that shifts at the edge of the trees
[This photograph looks even better when enlarged.]
I fell in love with these two skeletal trees. They have a certain grandeur and it is sad to think of what they once were - living beings fulfilling their role in our fragile environment. The shade they once provided to protect the soil from drying out too much, and the shelter they provided to birds and small insects. They were each a small world in itself.
But drought is a terrible thing. Once the water table retreats far enough through lack of consistent rain, the roots simply cannot get enough water to survive. The death of trees like this is a slow affair and from the outer reaches of the branches their systems start to shut down, limb by limb until the very roots themselves dry up.
They still serve a useful purpose in death though, providing habitats for small creatures and birds, and you can see that moss that is growing quite well on the outside of each tree. But this moss is a sign of the more recent rains that came too late to save these trees.
My title is a line that comes from an album I've listened to frequently in recent times, Nick Cave's magnificently dark and brooding, "Skeleton Tree".
There’s a dark force that shifts at the edge of the trees
[This photograph looks even better when enlarged.]
I fell in love with these two skeletal trees. They have a certain grandeur and it is sad to think of what they once were - living beings fulfilling their role in our fragile environment. The shade they once provided to protect the soil from drying out too much, and the shelter they provided to birds and small insects. They were each a small world in itself.
But drought is a terrible thing. Once the water table retreats far enough through lack of consistent rain, the roots simply cannot get enough water to survive. The death of trees like this is a slow affair and from the outer reaches of the branches their systems start to shut down, limb by limb until the very roots themselves dry up.
They still serve a useful purpose in death though, providing habitats for small creatures and birds, and you can see that moss that is growing quite well on the outside of each tree. But this moss is a sign of the more recent rains that came too late to save these trees.
My title is a line that comes from an album I've listened to frequently in recent times, Nick Cave's magnificently dark and brooding, "Skeleton Tree".