The forest is my playground

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Decided to go on a hike with my digital camera deep in the woods behind my house and after nearly getting brained by deer I startled into a stampede I found this thing...

(click on the pics for a bigger one)















I'm about 20 feet up in this last one, and the holes were so big I probably could have climbed all the way to the top. Cool, neh?

[Vonriel]

Woah, that is cool. I wonder what happened to the tree? Probably something unnatural (acid rain?) or bad (fungus?)

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Woah, that is cool. I wonder what happened to the tree? Probably something unnatural (acid rain?) or bad (fungus?)

I'm inclined to think it was originally woodpeckers (are everywhere here), but what happened from there... not a clue. Its crazy.

[StickMan]

the holes seem a little low to the gound to be wood peckers to me, I live in an are with some and I've never seen anything like that in our trees. You may want to send these pics to some one at a wild life park or a college bio department if there is one in your area to see what it is.

[Ego Slayer]

Woodpeckers, I say. I'm a rabid lover of ornithology. >_>
But, dang... they're healed. That I've never really seen. If they healed that means the tree is still alive. Bugs in live trees. I feel confused. That's very cool. I don't recall exactly where you are (I should by now), but I'll assume you know what your biggest woodpecker is... Pileated?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

the holes seem a little low to the gound to be wood peckers to me,

I was thinking the same thing, but the only thing in my experience that they resemble are woodpecker holes.

I live in an are with some and I've never seen anything like that in our trees. You may want to send these pics to some one at a wild life park or a college bio department if there is one in your area to see what it is.

First time for me as well. But that might be a good idea.

Woodpeckers, I say. I'm a rabid lover of ornithology. >_>
But, dang... they're healed. That I've never really seen. If they healed that means the tree is still alive. Bugs in live trees. I feel confused.

Oh yeah, definetely still alive.

That's very cool. I don't recall exactly where you are (I should by now), but I'll assume you know what your biggest woodpecker is... Pileated?

Yeah, I've seen some absolutely enormous woodpeckers, including the pileated down here (I'm in north-east Georgia, btw).

[Vonriel]

Man, I'm glad we don't have woodpeckers around here. You can keep them to the east of me, thank you. We definitely have enough trees for them though..

[phoenixineohp]

Never seen anything like that... Very weird.

The 1000k submissions with the snurtle and road signs are awesome by the way. :P

[Sampi]

That's one weird tree.

Cool pictures, though. Nice to see green for a change..

[Baerdog7]

Whew...nicely done VT! That's quite a find you've got there. You have no idea how envious I am of you, though, having a forest in your back yard. Gods know how much I wish I had a forest to romp around in whenever I felt like it.

-Baerdog7

[Cobra_Ikari]

Well, I can honestly say I've never seen anything like that.

...we don't have woodpeckers around me, to my knowledge...

[DarkLightDragon]

Hehe. That lookks funny!

[The Vorpal Tribble]

The 1000k submissions with the snurtle and road signs are awesome by the way. :P

Thank ye. I promise none of the pics I post in this thread are doctored though.

Whew...nicely done VT! That's quite a find you've got there. You have no idea how envious I am of you, though, having a forest in your back yard. Gods know how much I wish I had a forest to romp around in whenever I felt like it.

Oh yeah, I love the land around here. And then right behind the forest of my property the Chestatee wildlife preserve starts and goes on for a few hundred miles.

Believe it or not, but I've gone out in the woods near dusk to look for owls and I've heard what sounds like traditional indian music playing on drums and woodwinds out there (though I've been pretty far into there and never seen anything).

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Heres a few more interesting additions to my 'playground'...






(Double Rainbow)




(Light and Dark)

[Beleriphon]

Heres a few more interesting additions to my 'playground'...

Whole crap the Illuminati are taking over our trees!

[bosssmiley]

Woodpeckers, I say. I'm a rabid lover of ornithology. >_>
But, dang... they're healed. That I've never really seen. If they healed that means the tree is still alive.

Oh yeah, unless you ringbark a tree (verminous grey squirrels!) it'll survive almost anything you throw at it. I've seen a tree torn down by winter storms, with only a tiny piece of live wood still connecting the root mass to the trunk and branches, and the thing was budding!
The more I learn about trees the more they amaze me.

Decided to go on a hike with my digital camera deep in the woods behind my house and after nearly getting brained by deer I startled into a stampede I found this thing...

(click on the pics for a bigger one)

<trim>



I'm about 20 feet up in this last one, and the holes were so big I probably could have climbed all the way to the top. Cool, neh?

Mate, you look *so* like your avatar there (apart from the superfluous and noticably non-stick-like limb things you have emerging from your corners).

[zeratul]

what the hell is wrong with that tree?

[Ego Slayer]

^: Woodpeckers.

Oh yeah, unless you ringbark a tree (verminous grey squirrels!) it'll survive almost anything you throw at it. I've seen a tree torn down by winter storms, with only a tiny piece of live wood still connecting the root mass to the trunk and branches, and the thing was budding!
The more I learn about trees the more they amaze me.

Oi, yeah, girdling.

@VT - I love the second to last picture with the rainbow! ^_^ Looks like some really nice land... Glad to know you're getting out there and enjoying nature. I've got 11 acres of mostly woods to explore, plus lots more, which my family doesn't own around it, but we know the various owners. Right across the road from me is over a 100 acres of mainly woods (I wish I could walk through it... bah) which got put into conservancy so it won't ever have an ugly housing development on it. Yay! I can't wait 'til this bout of yucky weather passes, so I can get back to adventuring in my own backyard.

[Ms_Elaneous]

That's fan-freakin-tastically awsesome, Trib-Trib! I want to call you Trib-Trib. Can I call you Trib-Trib?

((Seriously, trees, sweet. Climbing and hiking, sweet.))

[zeratul]

I cant climb trees I have verry little upper body strength. Most of my strength is in my legs.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mate, you look *so* like your avatar there (apart from the superfluous and noticably non-stick-like limb things you have emerging from your corners).

I tend to get that alot

@VT - I love the second to last picture with the rainbow! ^_^ Looks like some really nice land... Glad to know you're getting out there and enjoying nature. I've got 11 acres of mostly woods to explore, plus lots more, which my family doesn't own around it, but we know the various owners. Right across the road from me is over a 100 acres of mainly woods (I wish I could walk through it... bah) which got put into conservancy so it won't ever have an ugly housing development on it. Yay! I can't wait 'til this bout of yucky weather passes, so I can get back to adventuring in my own backyard.

I don't know if the preserve behind me is allowable for me to go into... so I guess I may be tresspassing... but then again, the deer from there come onto MY property, so I think we have an agreement.

That's fan-freakin-tastically awsesome, Trib-Trib! I want to call you Trib-Trib. Can I call you Trib-Trib?

Umm. I don't... well, err...

*backs away slowly*

I cant climb trees I have verry little upper body strength. Most of my strength is in my legs.

Aww, man, your missing out!

[Vonriel]

Dude, it's Ms. E. From what I can tell, you either let her do what she wants, or she starts to do that thing where they cry and then make you feel like you're worthless. And it really is freaky how much you look like your avatar.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Dude, it's Ms. E. From what I can tell, you either let her do what she wants, or she starts to do that thing where they cry and then make you feel like you're worthless.

I have 5 sisters... I fear I am heavily innured.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Heres another pretty pic with an odd story behind it. One of my new favorite places to hike is by this river thats about a quarter mile below this baseball field in a valley. The place is covered in wildlowers, mosses and ferns and down a ways there is this old abandoned mill. A really eerie but beautiful place.

Well, had just climbed down to the river with some of my syblings when we started hearing this really strange music. Beautiful and seemingly close by, but there wasn't a soul around (isn't exactly easily accessible). We start heading towards it and it cuts out. We continue searching around but never found anything. My sister said it must be fairies nearby.

Though I brought my camera to capture the place, this is one of maybe a total of five that came out, out of 80 I took. No matter what, would come out blurry. Must have been those fairies again...

[miserable]

Hi :)

I have something very similar to just one tree in my front yard.

The holes are about 2 inches wide and 3 to 4 inches long vertically.

They are mostly in the first 4 feet of the tree too though there is a smaller one that I can see about 10 feet up. All together there are 4 or 5 that I can see. I don't feel like going out right now to count :)

They are recently made too . I started noticing them appearing around New Years 07. There was a half a foot of snow on the ground . It had to be a woodpecker because there were no footprints in the snow but it had to be HUGE. There were chunks of tree in a hemisphere emminating out from the tree at about a 3 foot diameter on top of the snow. I've never seen anything. I've never heard anything. It would half to have been real loud and there is ALWAYS someone home here. Noone else seen or heard it either.



It looks like something was trying to get into grubs that were in the core of the tree , which looked like it was starting to rot anyways. There are little holes in there I can see where the grubs used to live .


Weird... Western Pennsylvania here. Where is your freaky tree .

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Weird... Western Pennsylvania here. Where is your freaky tree .

North Georgia in the good ole Appalachians

[Baerdog7]

That's a really nice picture of the creek, VT. I've always loved hiking up and down creeks and things. There's so much life to be found in a riparian environment, it's amazing. Too bad that non-native crayfish are destroying Arizona's. *angry fist* It's gotten pretty bad, actually. The Boy Scout camp that I used to work at actually encouraged the campers to find and kill crawdads because the Webber Creek that ran through the camp was getting so chewed up.

Between drought, bark beetles, and crawdads, Arizona's forests have really been taking a beating for the past several years.

-Baerdog7

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Crawdads aren't too bad here, but yeah, those beetles are vicious. They seem to have taken out half the pines in georgia. Not that I can say I really miss them. These aren't your christmas tree pines but big, huge ugly things with needles only at skyscraper level and enough pollen to drown a town.

[Cobra_Ikari]

Crawdads aren't too bad here, but yeah, those beetles are vicious. They seem to have taken out half the pines in georgia. Not that I can say I really miss them. These aren't your christmas tree pines but big, huge ugly things with needles only at skyscraper level and enough pollen to drown a town.

Pines...have pollen?

That's news to me...

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Pines...have pollen?

That's news to me...

Well, not so much pollen as an enviromental hazard...


(I sure hope that was sarcasm, Cobra )