Oak tree marker?

[lostsoul2023]

I believe this Water Oak is over 50 years old, and the odd shaped hole is about 1 inch deep. Does this look all natural, or could if have started as roundish, or heart shape mark on the tree, 40ish years ago and has become this over the time? This would be a marker left in the more modern era of 1980...

 

[Mud Hut]

I think that is a natural blemish.

 

[lostsoul2023]

I think that is a natural blemish.

I think that is a natural blemish.

ok thank you, yep it most likely is that. Now I have to wonder if it was significant enough to have started and been there, what seems like a very long time, if it was used as "sort of" a marker for a spot/area. But that a whole different question. Thank you

 

[releventchair]

Blazed trees were falling out of practice before then. Location factors though.
Yes it could have been a deliberate marker besides a blaze . Discouraged in public places along time though.

Yes a tree can be a marker or contain a marker . Yet a tree can be (and many have been) removed. For more reason than a tree "needs" to be removed. Even just for cosmetics.

One lightning strike or car crash can kill a tree. Or girdling. Or it's roots starved enough. Or a disease. Pest or parasite...Fire.

Easy to get to trees show graffiti from the past to the present at times.
Redundancy of a confirming sign might hint of more than a one off manipulation/damage.
But if depending on redundancy and a tree that may or may nor remain (to say nothing of a sign on it being manipulated/changed ect.) How much should we depend on a area of treebark being damaged?
Here is where importance of purpose comes in. And blazes so to return or refollow are often line of sight to the next or closer.
How to direct to an individual bark marking? And how to account for the possibility that mark is gone or altered? (Duplicity or redundancy of sorts).

 

[Michael Karpovage]

I believe this Water Oak is over 50 years old, and the odd shaped hole is about 1 inch deep. Does this look all natural, or could if have started as roundish, or heart shape mark on the tree, 40ish years ago and has become this over the time? This would be a marker left in the more modern era of 1980...

I'm pretty sure it's where an old branch might have torn off for some reason. Like losing a limb. And at the base of the limb at the trunk you have the scar.

 

[lostsoul2023]

Blazed trees were falling out of practice before then. Location factors though.
Yes it could have been a deliberate marker besides a blaze . Discouraged in public places along time though.

Yes a tree can be a marker or contain a marker . Yet a tree can be (and many have been) removed. For more reason than a tree "needs" to be removed. Even just for cosmetics.

One lightning strike or car crash can kill a tree. Or girdling. Or it's roots starved enough. Or a disease. Pest or parasite...Fire.

Easy to get to trees show graffiti from the past to the present at times.
Redundancy of a confirming sign might hint of more than a one off manipulation/damage.
But if depending on redundancy and a tree that may or may nor remain (to say nothing of a sign on it being manipulated/changed ect.) How much should we depend on a area of treebark being damaged?
Here is where importance of purpose comes in. And blazes so to return or refollow are often line of sight to the next or closer.
How to direct to an individual bark marking? And how to account for the possibility that mark is gone or altered? (Duplicity or redundancy of sorts).

thank you

 

[lostsoul2023]

I'm pretty sure it's where an old branch might have torn off for some reason. Like losing a limb. And at the base of the limb at the trunk you have the scar.

thank you

 

[lostsoul2023]

ok this is a follow up and maybe a dumb question to ask, but I will. if you came across a tree with 3 holes or blemish looking spots... top one centered, the two below slight off to the left. Would these marks mean something , Hypothetically if they were markings, what would it or might it be saying? If anything at all? that is just my drawing of a sup[posed tree with these marks or what could be holes in an odd way... just asking for sake of what "could be" if it were something.