I realise that it is distressing for many to see the tall queens of the forest uprooted and lying in windthrow. For some, centuries of life seem to have ended.
Older beech are particularly susceptible to storms. They catch the gale, and with their shallow anchorage in the fragipan below, they can topple.
The forest could not endure without these stormy events. The chablis of fallen trees, with their exposed root plates, is fertile ground, and light can now reach the forest floor. Seed that has slept for years wakes. Grasses, flowers, shrubs, fungi, insects all arrive in sequence. Biodiversity spikes precisely because order has been interrupted. Small mammals can thrive.
This living complexity is far healthier than the Fagéan monoculture that ruled before.
The queen is dead. Long live the queen.
It’s an AI image, I take my own advice