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#ClimateDiary more school walk musings. We have these majestic #Holmoaks around here (they are really amazing). At the moment the ground is covered with their dry leaves. They are evergreen and i don’t remember ever seeing this before. In June.Is it the #Drought? But could also have just not noticed this in previous years.
Thinking a lot about #Attention again at the moment and #Phenology - and how it is really hard to monitor continuities and changes, unless they have direct relevance for you
@pvonhellermannn It’s normal! Live oaks (like the holm oak) are evergreen but drop old leaves every spring when they come out of their winter dormant phase to start sprouting new ones.
@iBlame @pvonhellermannn
I agree the tree is probably fine - evergreens are more drought-resistant than most, having water-retentive leaves.
But the accumulation of leaves, if it's new rather than just newly-noticed, might still be symptomatic, albeit indirectly.
Not only have they not been washed away by rain, they've not been eaten by worms or other organisms, either, which are presumably waiting out the dry spell underground, to the likely frustration of birds etc.
@wibble @iBlame thank you - really interesting! I am learning a lot today. And yes, nothing is being washed away or eaten, a lot of of dry stuff everywhere. Combined with lack of spraying (
) it’s pretty wild out there in our #Eastbourne neighbourhood just now! 
@wibble @pvonhellermannn Yeah, it’s unrealistic to expect that live oaks would remain unaffected by climate change. I have literally thousands of them on my Texas farm and we’ve lost maybe 5% of the less robust ones in the past few years from what i suspect is a combo of the historic deep-freeze of ‘21 and our ongoing drought. Dead limbs seem to be breaking off otherwise healthy-looking trees at an accelerated rate, too.