Summer at a Fallen Pine

The pine seedling began growing in an old field nearly 100 years ago. It wasn’t more than eight feet tall when the growing tip was damaged, perhaps by a feeding white pine weevil or a bird using it for a perch. Side branches took its place and the tree continued growing, this time with three or four trunks instead of the single trunk it would have had if that one tip hadn’t been damaged.

And so it became a more or less typical old field white pine with multiple trunks. Now, many years later one of those trunks has snapped off under a heavy load of snow or ice or perhaps from a strong wind. The fallen pine trunk has been lying on the ground for a number of years, serving as a highway for predator and prey and providing a source of food for many other species.

Here are the videos from the summer just past taken by a camera trap that has a view down the fallen pine –

It will be many years until the fallen pine is but an  indistinguishable hump on the forest floor, even then it will continue providing for the creatures of the forest.