Down and out

I walked for about 250m across Little Holm Hill through one of the coniferous plantations which form an expanse of mosaic coniferous/deciduous woodland in this part of the forest. The devastation caused by storm damage was remarkable. The woodland is all but impassible, a jumble of trunks, canopies and upturned root-balls, leaving the walker disorientated and confused. I'd say around 40% of the trees were down. This wasn't done in one storm, though nor had this extensive damage been done over years, no, most of this looked like in had occurred over the last 2 years, say.  I've seen this happen in other parts of the forest.  First a tree or two goes down, weakened by the extremes of wet and dry they're easy prey for todays' stronger and more persistent winds, now a chink has been exposed each following storm has a way into the stands and once in they wreak havoc creating more weak points to exploit. And, so the pattern goes on until the woodland is decimated. I fear as climate change intensifies we'll only see more of this. A sad sight.