Damaged trees (pictures)

[Woulde]

Any idea what could have caused this type of damage to these trees?  Location is Northern Michigan.  First post with pictures, so bear with me.

[Woulde]

Well, that didn't work out as intended.

Can't find info on how to load pictures, any suggestions?

[VTLogSlayer]

The pictures opened for me.  My buddies and i feel like it is some sort of small mammal. skunk maybe

[Texas Ranger]

bear, badger or beaver

[SwampDonkey]

Well, that didn't work out as intended.

Can't find info on how to load pictures, any suggestions?

"Behind the Forum" Board in the Forum Index page and the photo posting "Help" menu item. That's two options. "Forum Extras" gets you to the galleries to upload pictures. Java Photo Uploader is also under your post window under "Additional Options", it optimizes to the forum limits of 500 pixels on the wide side and under 45k for file size. Hover over you user name and look at the bottom of your Browser window. Should see U=#### on the end of that link. Note it and add 10000 to it and place that number in your "Profile" menu to attach a direct link to your gallery page from a post you have made. So we can jump there from your post to see any pictures you may not have in a current thread we have open. The photo posting code of any pictures in your gallery is found by first clicking on a photo in the gallery. Could be your photo or someone else's from their gallery to, but the link appears under the picture in a field. Copy and paste into a post your making or editing. The little paper icon in the lower right hand of your post allows a quick edit of the post. The "Modify" button also does a similar outcome from the posted thread. So you can edit any mistakes in posting. You'll need Java loaded and turned on in your browser to do some stuff. Explore Help menu and the "Behind the Forum" Board for more info, or ask. ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Those trees got a lot of rot? I'd say barrr. They roll about every rotten log on my woodlot in the spring for insect grubs.  There isn't many rotten logs, but they hit the same old big ones every year. In the fall they take at my oaks for the acorns, only they ain't producing any yet. But, near about 300 acres of mature ones, so just practicing on mine. Do a number on beech to for nuts, make nests up there from pawing and breaking off fine tips. I bet there is a bear den not too far away. I find dens every summer when pre-commercial thinning. They love hardwood or fir thickets under old hardwood stumps on hills. ;D



barrr in the oak. :D



That's one big badger. He got ugly, came out early. ;)

No, that was one December. He had it too good, lots to eat. :D

One summer I got a surprise. What I thought was a porky crawling through weeds, showed a big barr head peeking through the weeds. Not far from that oak and snow tracks. They don't go far from home turf sometimes when the pick'ns good. He didn't try forester meat yet. Too tough! :D

[SwampDonkey]

In your gallery pictures, before you upload them manually, you can scale them to 499 pixels and adjust compression with the jpeg "save for web" export in Photoshop to fit under 45kb. Use "cropping" in your software to target the subject and trim all the fat off the edges so to speak.

[Woulde]

test

[Woulde]

looks like that worked, thanks for the help!  Now, I'll have to work on cropping and pixels and stuff.

Scary to think there could be bear (or is that barrr?) in them woods.  I'll need to sharpen my pocketknife :D.  I also better not tell my wife.

I'm just itching to get back to the woods.  I bought the land last summer and haven't been back since.  Had my topo done and hoping to get the drive put in this year.

I'll be posting more pictures later on this year.

Thanks for the help!

[SwampDonkey]

Just like picture pages on Captain Kangaroo. ;D

[DirtForester]

Hard to tell from the pics, but the last one (dd) looks like Pileated woodpecker damage.

[JimTwoSticks]

last one did look like pileated woodpecker. Black barrrrrrr assessment for the damage near the ground sounds reasonable.
maybe they weren't looking for food and the tree looked at them funny

[SwampDonkey]

Black bear paw at base of trees in the spring time for sugary sap. They can damage a lot of trees. My grandfather showed be a stand of spruce one time that the bears barked the base of a whole lot of them. It is also believed it gets the bowls going from a long winter's sleep. They also look for grubs in rotten wood, stubs and downed trees.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/animals/bear.shtml

http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf03242832/pdf03242832dpi72.pdf

[Pilot1]

Only the first pic came out well enough for me to get a good look.  Looks like bear damage, but out here they go for thin barked trees (young trees) .  They come out of hibernation and go looking for the sap.  In the Bull Run Watershed which provides water for Portland, OR, they would go after the trees in the first or second year after pre-commercial thinning.  Damage is most common on the best sites and the fastest growing trees. The Bull Run has the best growing sites on the Mt. Hood NF; I never saw bear damage on the Clackamas District.  In unthinned areas, they would sometimes climb 50 feet up to get at the thinner bark.

Here's an interesting story.  On the Gifford Pinchot NF, there was a big fire about 1900, followed by another fire about 25 years later in most of the same area.  They were hot fires and depleted soil nitrogen.  As an experiment relating to fire behavior in areas with alder vs. Douglas-fir, they interplanted alder among the DF in a strip about 150 ft. wide and about a mile long.  Alder fixes nitrogen in abundance, but they didn't have that in mind at the time.

If you go thru the area today, you will see much better growth of the DF in the alder strip compared to the surrounding area (24-30" dbh vs maybe 16"), where trees are stunted because of low nitrogen.    Now, to get back to bear damage, almost all the DF in the alder strip have bear damage; none outside the strip have it.