This picture, taken looking very high up towards the top of one of the Scots Pine trees along the upper part of the drive, shows a typical "rip-out" scar of a dropped branch from surprisingly high up in the canopy. Its such a shame that such a high branch has been lost and its a bit difficult to imagine how it happened!
I had never noticed this following structural difference before, only the obvious colour change as you go up the trunk! This picture shows the often typical reddish scaly bark found higher up the trunks of the trees, as opposed to the scaly fissured bark found lower down the trunk (lower picture).
In the picture above of the bark at chest height, you also have the green algae growing on the North side, on the left. On the right hand side you can see more of the proper colour of the scales, but the bark is never as smooth or as orange as the smooth scales near the top of the tree, and the bark is more a mid-brown at its warmest.
The Scots Pine trees further along the drive do look subtly different, from the ones nearer the A26. They seem to me to far wiggly in their trunks and branches. Here are some wiggly branches high up in the canopy;
and here are some bendy tips to the trunks - very odd!
Overall most of the trees higher up the drive look a bit bendy and wiggly as in the picture below, if you look closely at the way the branches have developed.
and the trunk of the young one on the right in the picture below just doesn't seem to know what on earth it is doing!
This last picture (below) shows what looks like woodpecker damage high up on an apparently healthy branch. I am not sure what other explanation there could be for this (apart from climber damage), and the branch does overhang a target - the college main drive - so it could be worth keeping an eye on. Some of the branch has been apparently quite deeply pecked into, and some other areas of surface bark apparently levered up. It all fits with a woodpecker trying to get at insects inside the branch, but there is no sign of ill-health in the branch foliage, so maybe it will remain a mystery!
I had never noticed this following structural difference before, only the obvious colour change as you go up the trunk! This picture shows the often typical reddish scaly bark found higher up the trunks of the trees, as opposed to the scaly fissured bark found lower down the trunk (lower picture).
In the picture above of the bark at chest height, you also have the green algae growing on the North side, on the left. On the right hand side you can see more of the proper colour of the scales, but the bark is never as smooth or as orange as the smooth scales near the top of the tree, and the bark is more a mid-brown at its warmest.
The Scots Pine trees further along the drive do look subtly different, from the ones nearer the A26. They seem to me to far wiggly in their trunks and branches. Here are some wiggly branches high up in the canopy;
and here are some bendy tips to the trunks - very odd!
Overall most of the trees higher up the drive look a bit bendy and wiggly as in the picture below, if you look closely at the way the branches have developed.
and the trunk of the young one on the right in the picture below just doesn't seem to know what on earth it is doing!
This last picture (below) shows what looks like woodpecker damage high up on an apparently healthy branch. I am not sure what other explanation there could be for this (apart from climber damage), and the branch does overhang a target - the college main drive - so it could be worth keeping an eye on. Some of the branch has been apparently quite deeply pecked into, and some other areas of surface bark apparently levered up. It all fits with a woodpecker trying to get at insects inside the branch, but there is no sign of ill-health in the branch foliage, so maybe it will remain a mystery!
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