Or even possibly Ents? I’ve only read about Ents but from what I understand of their nature some of the trees I see in this forest act like them, as best I can tell from my brief observations walking by: they are very still when I’m looking right at them, I hear a low hmmmming wooshing sound (admittedly hard to pinpoint), and over the years I see slight changes in their postures. This is in the temperate rainforest of the western Olympic Peninsula of Washington state where I walk every year. Mostly I’m in the several-mile wide strip of forest along the ocean in Olympic National Park. This side of the peninsula was isolated from logging pressures until Hwy 101 was built in the 1930s, and the timber companies never made their way into the extreme coastal margin to clearcut. Winds have blown trees over but otherwise the forest does as it will with minimal human management.
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
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Between the coastal strip and the mountainous interior part of Olympic NP pretty much all private land and National Forest acreage was clearcut during the last century.
But the big old trees are in the dense dark rainforest by the ocean, where there are paths but no roads.
My camera gets confused in the darkness of the woods, but here are a few forest favorites in the diffuse dim light.
The story of the Ents is a sad one, not just for the loss of the forests they lived in, full of trees they looked after, but also for the loss of their beloved Entwives. If Ents are inhabiting this old forest, are they awake?
Maybe I’m being fanciful but some of these giants in the rainforest even look fecund.
These nodules almost look like new growth….a weird Entish “pregnancy”?
(or maybe galls...of ?)
The bumpy one is a hemlock and beside it is an old spruce.
The tree below looks as if it is fissioning. Like a sea anemone pulling apart to form two new individuals.
And the one below that almost seems to be forming a cozy cradle.
And another, a sheltered cavern.
The old rainforest has mysteries. Walking under the dense canopy the shapes there are not like the straight young trees that have grown up recently. Age and stormy experience has marked and twisted their forms. Each has a story to tell.
One last tree in this photoBucket. A deciduous youngster leans far out over the river to gather as much light as possible. Will it survive this precarious position, with gravity and river-flooding acting on it? I’ll be watching, and will report. In a few years.
oooOOOooo
As alway, all nature observations are welcome in the comments below. Tell us what you’re seeing in your own natural neighborhood.
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