By the church, a covey of partridges bustles about in the pasture, warming themselves in the golden sunshine. The morning air is tinged with the sweetness of manure, and from an adjacent field comes the hum of farm machinery. Gulls and corvids swarm above, rucking in the sky as a tractor churns the soil, exposing invertebrates to the baying crowd.
Behind the ancient building stands a truly strange sight; an eerie gathering of long-dead oak trees. Squat, stocky trunks topped by a few remaining wizened branches. Despite the fact that even the day’s breeze cannot rouse any movement among their limbs, they appear to lurch and sway, seemingly animated, as though petrified while staggering across the landscape. Their abnormal appearance dominates, but how long they have stood, when they perished, or how they have managed to remain upright is a mystery.
Oaks have traditionally been seen as rulers of the woodland, representing strength and nobility, and it is thought that trees from this copse were once used to build the Royal Navy fleet, their wood grand enough for monarchy. Centuries later they are fragile and vulnerable. This area would once have been covered with trees, but an increase in agriculture means nature has had to make way for crops and livestock. Today, all that remains of the once-mighty woodlands are these few bizarre skeletons.
Although dead, they’re brimming with life. Their flaking bark offers a refuge for invertebrates, their hollow trunks may have attracted fungi, mosses and lichens, and their remaining branches are perfect for woodpeckers, bats and nuthatches. Standing dead wood is a vital habitat that provides food and shelter for innumerable species, though is becoming increasingly rare thanks to our overzealous need to “tidy”. But while these oaks are protected by the current farmer, who has gone to rigorous measures to keep them safe, they cannot be guarded from the elements. Roughly once a year another is lost, felled by wind, rain or heat.
In the field next door, the hum grows as the tractor draws nearer, ploughing the earth. Several birds have alighted in one of the tree’s branches, as though coronating it. These kings of the forest may have long lost their crowns, but they still manage to rule over this arable court.
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