05/29/2026
Have you ever visited the Frog Lake backpacking campsite and wondered what those weird, lumpy blue oaks were on the other side of Hobbs Rd? We at the park refer to these as "corkscrew trees" and no, they were not smooshed by a giant bird sitting in the tree.
The likely culprit was a woodpecker known as a sapsucker. These birds drill a series of horizontal holes in trees and return later to eat bugs that get trapped in the sap, hence "sapsucker!" It is possible that one or more of these sapsuckers carried a pathogen on its beak such as a fungus or bacteria. The tree's natural defense is to grow bark around the infection, which could help explain these interesting, corkscrew-like shapes.
This may not be as interesting as a giant bird squishing a tree like an accordion, but who would want to encounter a creature like that in the park anyway?
📷 Nabeel Al-Shamma & Herveline Sartori
