‘Opening Endings’ (Oil painting on canvas, by Alan Rayner, 1999).
An elm tree’s demise, its wing-barked boundaries opened by ravages of bark beetle and fungus, makes way for new life to fill its
space. Maple leaves take over the canopy between earth and sky, but their coverage is only partial, leaving openings for arriving and
departing flights of woodpeckers. Fungal decay softens the wood to allow the tunnelling of long-horn beetle larvae and probing and
chiselling of beak-endings. A nest cavity provides a feeding station between egg and air.
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