A grey wagtail flits at the stream’s edge, its flaxen underbelly matching the woodland’s autumn swatch. A few months ago, this bird may have struggled to catch a midge or water snail here, after the streambed nearly ran dry. Sitting by the water now, it’s easy to forget the damage this area suffered this year. But the land remembers.
Many months on from Storm Goretti, the entrance to these woods is still a battlefield of fallen trees, Scots pines and ageing oaks torn ungainly from the ground. Just over a mile away, a gorse break is still scarred from a late-summer wildfire that blackened the coastline. I stopped by the other day; the western gorse should have been blooming, delicate coconut notes luring in late pollinators. Instead, their petrified remains jutted lifelessly out towards the sea.
