Oddities along the trail.
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations of the natural world. Birds, blooms, bugs and more, all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in the comments, with location as close as you care to share.
March 14, 2013
Hopeless - that's me. I can't walk by a deformed tree trunk without stopping to ponder - what happened to that tree? Was it injured? How long ago? Natural or man-made? Was it insects, a treefall, and how long did it take to heal over? Was it some farmer with barbed wire and too lazy or too poor to get a fence post? Some kid with a knife and idle moments?
Here's a tree on my backyard trail going downhill. It's at eye-level so my guess, knowing this area was farmed back in the day, is that it got clipped by a tractor or something thrown against it at a young age and the scar expanded and moved up as it grew. At the moment it has a few parts of an old rusted cast iron stove leaning against it - junk I found while clearing a path around the tree.
Follow below the orange twisty trail for more photos.
This is fascinating the way the tree got knocked over and ripped open but still gave birth to a healthy tree growing up at the end. I imagine a mouse or squirrel have explored that hidey-hole many a time...
No telling what calamity befell this tree. Given that the tree is along a floodplain, I'd guess that something flowing thru in high water ripped against it.
Fire maybe? Or fire sometime after the trunk started to rot. The tree is maybe 8" diameter and hanging on. Note how the base and roots enlarged to compensate.
Here ya go. Up in the back corner of my woods is this Loblolly pine that was close enough to the corner (close enough for someone marking the line with a compass and not caring about declination) that it became the corner post. Hard to see but there are fence wires coming out all sides of it. They look to be running right thru the heart of it.
Nothing wrong with this Southern Magnolia - it's just really really old. Trees like this make me reach out and touch to feel the years.
Always something out there to see and think about. Wonderful morning today in the woods near Tallahassee. When I stepped out briefly I heard a Red-bellied Woodpecker sounding "cha cha cha" while exploring a tree and overhead was a Red-tailed hawk crying out, greeting the morning sun. My goal today is to spend more time outside looking up since yesterday was such a fruitful day for observations: a rare sighting of an anhinga flying over, and then a bald eagle chasing a hawk - in formation, the eagle matching each twist and turn.
How about y'all? Anything interesting going on around you? Got a favorite tree telling you stories? Join the conservation and let us know.