Tree scratches

[Catherine Otto]

Greetings again,

On the hike to Dimple Hill I saw a couple of trees with this same kind of scratching pattern in the bark. Maddy is in the second photo for scale. She’s 5 ft 4 inches tall.

Ideas?

Catherine Otto

[Betty nancy bee]

Bears I think. Black bears specifically. Very cool. 

Humans and nature can co-exist, and both can thrive.

Travel and nature blog: https://nancybird375.wordpress.com/

On Feb 21, 2023, at 6:49 PM, Catherine Otto <catheri...@comcast.net> wrote:

Greetings again,

On the hike to Dimple Hill I saw a couple of trees with this same kind of scratching pattern in the bark. Maddy is in the second photo for scale. She’s 5 ft 4 inches tall.

Ideas?

Catherine Otto

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[Carma Sue Henry]

Another idea...

I'm not that familiar with what bear scratched trees look like, but I don't see any thing that looks like distinct longitudinal claws marks that you might expect.  Also, some of the bark loss is very low on the base of the trunk - almost ground level.

This may be the work of Pileated Woodpeckers.  If there were (or still are) active beetle/larva under the bark, Pileateds can pry off quite large sections of bark in one go to get them.  We were sort of lucky (did lose a fine tree) to witness this at very close range while a pair de-barked an infested Cedar just feet from our front window.  They worked the trunk from ground level to about 20 ft up over a period of several days.  Eventually the tree was almost bare and large piles of debris surrounded the trunk.  While they were working the tree over the bare areas looked very much like this, although, as it was a cedar, the pieces that were removed tended to be long and stringy.  Once the bark was removed the tunneling of the beetles was very evident.

Carma Henry

[Catherine Otto]

Hi all,

Thanks for the interesting possibilities! I’m going to walk back up on that trail again and look more closely so I can for sure answer those questions you posed, Randy & Pam. I do remember that the remnants from the excavation were left on the ground below the trees. We saw a lot of evidence of pileated woodpecker work all along the trail too- the expected rectangular excavations.

I’ll report more after I return on that trail.

Catherine

On Feb 22, 2023, at 1:58 AM, Carma Sue Henry <csh...@bywordofmind.com> wrote:

Another idea...

[Lisa Millbank]

I can't really see any details of the scratches, but another (slim) possibility is a porcupine.  Porcupines are uncommon locally, but there are some around.  If you saw uniform 5mm-wide grooves all over the exposed wood, it would be a clear sign that a porcupine had been gnawing on the tree.

Lisa Millbank