There is an old hemlock tree I have been watching for a few months now. It’s not at all a well hemlock. In fact, it would seem to be dead.
It first came to my attention because of the noise. The tree was not making the noise. It was the woodpeckers. Yes, plural. I happened to be walking by a heard a lot of pecking of wood going on. Looking up along the tree, there were three woodpeckers who seemed to have dropped by for an all you can eat buffet. There were two hairy or downy woodpeckers and one pileated woodpecker, all at work on the same tree. Unusual to see them all at the same place.
On closer inspection, the tree did not seem to be alive. But what had happened to it? There has been a lot of talk about this wooly adelgid attacking hemlocks, but this did not seem to be the case. Although a lack of green on the branches would make it hard to spot any wooliness, but I couldn’t see anything on this or other trees in the area.
I kept watching the tree over several days. I don’t think I have ever come across a tree which always had at least one woodpecker present, but this one did. For weeks, and even months, every time I happened to walk by the tree there was always at least one woodpecker having lunch.
As to what they were eating, I’m not sure. But there were hundreds of little tiny holes in the bark. It looked like someone had gotten really bored in math class and repeatedly stabbed their desk with the pointy end of their compass. Little tiny holes everywhere.
I poked around a bit, but never did figure out what was in the holes. The woodpeckers obviously had it figured out. What was in those holes was lunch.
And over the course of several weeks, they enjoyed their lunch. So much so that there is pile of bark at the bottom of the tree. The bark pile would seem to be most of the outer layer of bark. They peal away enough to get lunch.
But now there is the question of what came first. Did the tree just die or get too weak to fend off pests? Or was it the pests that took out the tree?
Since other trees in the area don’t seem to be suffering the same fate, it would seem the tree was the problem first. The pests must have moved in later, just to provide lunch for woodpeckers. Although I’m sure a few of them have managed to move on to other such trees. But other hemlocks in the area don’t seem to have the same holes in the bark, and certainly don’t have the large contingent of woodpeckers.
While I may never find out if the death of the tree brought the pests, or the pests brought about the end of the tree, the woodpeckers don’t care. And it’s fun to watch them.
