Something on my oak

[Stevenjohn21]

 

 

 

Anybody know what the little black things are on the side of this oak? 
They are the size of chocolate chips. 
I cut a thin layer to see if it had stained the wood but nothing, seems to be growing on the bark only. 
I keep my logs around 10" off the ground and this was only on the underside of the log, no other logs seem to have it and it was just in a 2' area along the log. 

[KEC]

Some kind of fungus, I don't know what kind. May be trying to tell you to think about sawing it soon. (?)

[Don P]

just looking at pics, google "black bulgar" and see if that looks like it.

[Stevenjohn21]

just looking at pics, google "black bulgar" and see if that looks like it.

That does look like it, thank you. There isn't a lot of info on it other than it's a type of fungi otherwise name "poor man's licorice" but I don't think I'll be trying it 😂

[Ianab]

I ran the image through google image search and that was one of the suggestions that came back, along with about 6 other similar looking fungus species. So not enough for a positive ID, except it's a fungus. Probably has only colonised the sugar rich cambium layer just under the bark, and those are it's "fruiting" bodies, that release spores to settle on a new log. 

It won't have ruined the saw log, yet, but it's the first stage of fungus starting to attack it.