Cycle of life

I requested some wood from our Senior Ranger the other day.  Yesterday morning, I discovered two tons of very heavy logs dumped at the back of the volunteer centre, each of which would take three heavily muscled husky men to lift.  That's another problem.

Anyway, that's not what this image is about.  On the face of it it looks like a couple of logs with drill holes down the middle.  As with all things, it's more complicated than that.

Those are borer holes, and one of the reasons why a seemingly healthy tree might suddenly drop a branch, or fall over without warning.  It's amazing to me that the larval soft bodied stage of a beetle or a moth can cause such damage.  They mostly attack trees that are already under stress, either from mechanical damage, or lack of water, or fire, or any number of other issues.

It's interesting.