MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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I don't know why but I find this strangely saddening.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-43084088#
I really hate seeing felled trees. I'm in the wrong game as a furniture maker though...
That's sad to see. Magnificent tree.
At least it fell naturally but yes, sad to see. (I get really riled by totally unnecesarry fellings, 2 lovely old scots pines near me were just cut down because they were "blocking the view" of the person who chose to move into the house with 2 old scots pines outside their window.
Trees don't get much respect, which is a shame I think as they can make the landscape so much more interesting. Lived in a place a few years ago with a walnut beside us. I saved a couple that sprouted. Got them in large pots but nowhere to plant to let them set root and grow properly. Hopefully the pots are large enough that they don't get stunted too much.
Trees are great, but they don't live for ever. 1000y is a good age. I don't have a problem with trees dying/being felled if they are being replaced. Very famous 1000y tree (site of an assassination) fell in a storm near us a few years ago. Only it wasn't really 1000y old so wasn't the tree in the story 🙂 It actually re-sprouted from the roots...
At least it fell naturally but yes, sad to see. (I get really riled by totally unnecesarry fellings, 2 lovely old scots pines near me were just cut down because they were “blocking the view” of the person who chose to move into the house with 2 old scots pines outside their window.
Trees don’t get much respect, which is a shame I think as they can make the landscape so much more interesting.
Working with a tree surgeon I think I have a slightly different perspective on this. Often a lot of the trees we fell are the cause of considerable annoyance, irritation and acrimony between neighbours. Rarely do we fell a tree without a neighbour coming over to tell us how glad they are to see it gone. Now I should add this saddens me as I like trees and I don't like to see people miserable but it's so common it's laughably tragic.
I have an ancient woodland behind my house and I'm very protective of it, and I would have loved to have seen the oak in the link above in person before it fell but in towns and cities the hedges and trees of others seem to be little more than an annoyance to others. One particular old lady really sticks in my mind, her name is Ann and she had a big ash tree in her garden. It created considerable mess during autumn and winter and when her husband was alive he would go around to her neighbours and sweep up all the leafs, but when he died she wasn't able to continue doing this so she asked us to cut the tree down as her (much younger) neighbours constantly complained to her about the mess caused by the tree. I felt really sorry for her cutting down the tree and thinking that she had no one. Then on the second day of the clear up her daughter and her body builder husband who lived a couple of miles away arrived to cast careful scrutiny over our work.
For **** sake I thought. The poor woman paid big money to have a tree she liked cut down because she felt that she had no one who would sweep the street and the drive and yet here were 40 something daughter and son in law with sun bed tans and steroid bodies but they clearly couldn't be arsed lifting a finger to help her, especially ironic watching this 18 stone body builder in a singlet flexing pouting while he watched two relatively small men struggle to move some big pieces of timber. I've often thought of starting a PSA thread of sorts on the subject but obviously there's no point since STW knows better.
Anyway, carry on.
One day, the ground on which you're standing, will be deep under the sea in another part of the planet. Fish. Seaweed. Fossils.
Jog on.
Jimjam, that is a pretty sad story.
"Jog on."
What, with these knees?
Jimjam, that is a pretty sad story.
Yeah, I guess all I can say is if you have elderly neighbours who aren't complete arseholes, talk to them and try to help them with manual tasks. It depresses me how often I see it.
If your susceptible to a bit of felled tree rage, don't go and check out the saga of Amey and Sheffield council...
Think they're over 6000 now.
My first house purchase was on a terraced street with a lovely row of trees down each side, inlcuding one right outside of the house. The houses were built at the turn of the century so I'm guessing the trees were planted at the same time. I lived there for ten years and the trees were a daily pleasure to sight, giving white & pink blooms in the spring they were lovely. Came home one afternoon to find about 75% of the street's trees cut down, including the one outside the house. 100yrs of growth gone in one afternoon because it disrupted the pavement.
If your susceptible to a bit of felled tree rage, don’t go and check out the saga of Amey and Sheffield council…Think they’re over 6000 now.
I start spitting feathers every time that gets mentioned anywhere.
Talk about pathologically risk-averse! 🤬
The Sheffield story is an abomination
When that tree was a sapling, William the Conqueror wasn't born. The people walking past it every day had never heard of America or Australia. Or the Renaissance. All those famous Welsh castles hadn't been built. No-one had sailed around the world.
....But they had just developed the software used by STW
pffft, mere sapling. there's a bristle cone pine in Nevada that's over 5,000 years old
Almost as nuts as the age of the Icelandic sharks - some of the ones swimming round now were born before the American Declaration of Independence!
Reminds me of this book from my childhood, history seen through the life of an oak. A wondrous read.
Almost as nuts as the age of the Icelandic sharks –
I think you mean Greenland Sharks.
They actually look that old! - In fact they look like they died decades ago but nobody told them
That's really sad.
Especially that it was known to be historically planted and 'maintained' as a pollard. Apart from the fact that it hadn't been maintained as a pollard at all recently; the large canopy that it had grown became a massive wind sail and pulled it apart. Fairly inevitable given it's open field position, and tractor induced root damage.
Really sad. Could have easily gone on for another 500yrs. Hopefully the local farmer will allow it to rot in situ, providing a haven for wildlife and a nursery area for some natural regeneration.
(Of course he won't; he'll log it and sell it for every penny he can get, then scour the ground clear of twigs so as not to interfere with his precious GPS tractor maintained boring monocultural cash crop.)
“so as not to interfere with his precious GPS tractor maintained boring monocultural cash crop”
....that you’ll then eat
Well, zokes, yes, I might eat the meat came from the cows that were fed the maize that was planted about the tree. That is a distinct possibility.
But that doesn't mitigate the farmer for neglecting to give the tree a bit of space. If he cared so much about the ancient tree that was planted by the local community he could have given it a a few metres wide berth. But he didn't; he ploughed right up to it.
Furthermore, the local environment agency, tree warden and eco types should have been more engaged with the ongoing management of a veteran Oak. Too many of these sentinel trees are lost to greedy and neglectful farmers and cost cutting local authorities.
All it needed was a tiny bit of space and some pollarding every 15-20 years.
I agree with pretty much all you've said.
Just thought it pertinent to draw the connection between the farmer's activities and the product they produce, and the sentence I quoted from you seemed more than a little OTT.
Whilst it's plausible that the tree could have survived another 500 years, it's also quite possible that it could have fallen over 500 years before it did. Lone trees will always be susceptible to wind throw, and ploughing only impacts the top 20-30 cm of soil (though it does contribute hugely to erosion, which is another story).
Of course, dear chap. You're not wrong. And it was a slightly OTT statement.
Having an arboricultural background, it's a bit of a bug-bear of mine. I find the degradation of our historic ecological landscape very distressing, particularly when it could so easily be avoided.
Hopefully a heightened awareness of these issues might come this tree falling apart? At least locally.
I was thinking about this last night, why I could never live in the Fens 25 miles away from me in Norfolk, whilst I find where I live in Breckland really picturesque, and I think it is because the Fens are just so flat and the field sizes are so big with nearly every tree removed. Whereas where I am it is much more rolling, they kept field sizes small and every field has hedges and trees round the boundaries. Every bike ride I see barn owls, red kites, deer and badgers, and coming from a city, I still find it great.
Greenland sharks, interestingly (or not) depends on your POV I guess; nearly every one of them is blind, there's a parasitic copepod that burrows into their eyes (you can see one in that photo) , it's specific to the shark, and is bio-luminescent which attracts prey to the shark.
Nature is weird....
Sometimes historical events seem far in the past but are only a couple of lifetimes away. There is still one person in the USA receiving a war pension as the child of an American Civil War veteran. That war ended in 1865.
As for old trees - I've visited the Fortingal Yew tree in Glen Lyon a couple of times. Supposedly around 2000 -3000 years old. Possibly the oldest tree in Britain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortingall_Yew
….But they had just developed the software used by STW[/quote
Sorry, shouldn’t really, but that did make me laugh!
Bodgy is spot on, old oaks like that one have enormous ecological value alive and dead. Some die and remain standing for decades, others fall over before they die and take just as long to decay fully, either way they continue to support a lot of wildlife. Fallen ones are good for fungi and insects, standing ones better for bats and birds - and for magpies to stash Saxon gold. The responses on here show that they have huge cultural value as well.
There are a lot of ancient oak and yews in the border country, it's sad when one falls over or dies, but not the end of the story until long after all of us on here are gone.
My dad sent me this link. We walked Offa's Dyke path in 1982 when I was 12. He not only recalled details about the b+b that we stayed in the night before but also found a picture which appears to show the tree before we walked past it. I wish I had his filing system.
Hmm, not sure how to post a picture anymore. You need to click on that box to get it....
Well I'll be damned, you're right!
I can see it in the greying distance!
A picture and memories to treasure there mate.
Thanks, swamp_boy.
I recognise that trees are often a hazard and need to be dealt with, owing to their inherent conflict with human safety and infrastructure. The Deep Ecology part of me wishes that sentinel trees such as this should at least be granted the dignity of their own 'death shadow'.
Almost as nuts as the age of the Icelandic sharks – some of the ones swimming round now were born before the American Declaration of Independence!
Hatched, not born...