Brmorgan
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I guess this really belongs in the "forestry" forum, but I never hang out over there, so too bad! I've been digging through a bunch of my old photo folders looking for good ones I've overlooked, and I found these pics I'd forgotten all about:
I came across that old Douglas Fir while out exploring on the quad in behind my parents' place three or four years ago. It still blows my mind; I've never seen anything quite like it. I've seen plenty of trees get smaller clusters and "witch's broom" formations from pests and parasites like Mistletoe, but nothing like this. It's like a tree equivalent of a cancer metastasizing or something; the growth has just gone crazy from that one spot. You can see how thin the foliage is on the surrounding healthy trees in comparison. It's larger than the rest though; this area was logged off in the '50s, so everything around it is now second-growth. This one survived the chainsaw somehow. I guess maybe the loggers had some respect for its uniqueness too.
It's clearly well-used by cougars and the like too; when I was there, the bark was raked fresh with plainly visible claw marks up it. There's a well-used game trail that passes directly below, which is perfect for them. They'll sit up high on a big branch above a trail and just drop onto an unsuspecting deer or something passing below. Cougars are the only thing that worries me at all in the bush, because you never see the one that gets you.
As the song goes, If I had $1000000... I'd pay anything to have this tree moved by whatever means necessary to my property. Could you imagine having a tree fort in that thing? I need to go back there on a nice blue sky day; I was there later on an overcast day and the lighting was horrible. I do like how the flash illuminates all the gnarly twisted branches though.
I came across that old Douglas Fir while out exploring on the quad in behind my parents' place three or four years ago. It still blows my mind; I've never seen anything quite like it. I've seen plenty of trees get smaller clusters and "witch's broom" formations from pests and parasites like Mistletoe, but nothing like this. It's like a tree equivalent of a cancer metastasizing or something; the growth has just gone crazy from that one spot. You can see how thin the foliage is on the surrounding healthy trees in comparison. It's larger than the rest though; this area was logged off in the '50s, so everything around it is now second-growth. This one survived the chainsaw somehow. I guess maybe the loggers had some respect for its uniqueness too.
It's clearly well-used by cougars and the like too; when I was there, the bark was raked fresh with plainly visible claw marks up it. There's a well-used game trail that passes directly below, which is perfect for them. They'll sit up high on a big branch above a trail and just drop onto an unsuspecting deer or something passing below. Cougars are the only thing that worries me at all in the bush, because you never see the one that gets you.
As the song goes, If I had $1000000... I'd pay anything to have this tree moved by whatever means necessary to my property. Could you imagine having a tree fort in that thing? I need to go back there on a nice blue sky day; I was there later on an overcast day and the lighting was horrible. I do like how the flash illuminates all the gnarly twisted branches though.
