Sentinels Guarding

I like to think of these old oaks as sentinels guarding the woodland behind, catching the breeze and warning of impending infections or parasites.

Trees are fabulous creatures, part of complex integrated ecosystems. I learned recently that trees can't actually extract nutrients from the soil - they need specific mycorrhizal fungi that break down the soil and pass on the nutrients to the tree roots in exchange for sugars that the tree makes using photosynthesis.