daltontrees

That is gorgeous! Fasciation plus post-fasciation tropisms.

Sooooo nice not to hear somene saying 'fell the b***ard' or 'good firewood' that'.

Stonking big P. squamosus on fallen section of sycamore, central scotland.

Nothing unusual here, L. sulphureus on Oak in the Borders, the dieback could be as much to do with ploughing of the field behind as anything else.

And going by the dust pattern there will be a few more up the stem out of shot. Or somebody has sneezed in a tin of cocoa powder nearby.

That's my experience too, it's not even a shelf-filler as several have seen it online throught their corporate BS membership and not bothered to get a hard copy. I'm wondering if I still have a point here, I suppose it is that the microguide can have its moments because officially it is backed by the BS, and it can save time, expense and paperwork in a lot of urban tree situations.

Now that's touting for business. Anyways, all this shows that the industry hardly knows where it stands (occasionally stamps?) on bats and that the new British Standard and microguide have laregly failed to reach the consciousness of the very industry that should be taking it up. As Jon Heuch says "As for best practice, you should be in a position to check for potential bat roosts without the assistance of external parties........it's just too common a position to be in." But it's having a defense if something goes wrong, or reassuring customers and clients that they are covered, that matters. The OP is probably well able to check that there are no bats just now, but that's not quite what the law says, roosts are protected even when not in use. What the heck, he hasn't even said he wants a survey done. I'd charge £25, but for only a few times that price he could get trained up himself and do as many as he wants and decided either to charge for them or offer it as a free bonus service.

I don't think that the 48 hours is to do with risk, it's to do wth making sure bats don't take up residence after the survey. Prevention of danger is a valid exemption from felling license requirement. Removal of risk is a valid exemption from normal bat precautions but only if the risk can't be reduced by other means such as closing off the area beneath the tree until proper bat precautions are taken. Even then measures are required to minimise risk to bats, such as lowering sections.

You're right it doesn't. I have also done the endoscope training for bat inspection course. I think if you only do the bat awareness training it would tell you clearly not to use an endoscope without the additional training.

That's not so, it allows you in some cases to rule out bat roosts without calling an ecologist. That, indeed, was the whole point of the scoping survey being introduced as an option.

I've domne this once, but you need to be absolutely sure it's an empty roost and not the only one available in the area. Obstructing a roost is tantamount to destroying it, which is indefensible. So I am told, but it seems consistent with the legislation.

The new BS8596 allows for a greatly simplified survey (non-specialist scoping survey) to be done to establish if there is low or negiligible risk of disturbing bat roosts. It's a combination of age, condition, species and position of trees and proximity to bat foraging areas. If this is all-clear, practices vary but the ecologists I work with generally say an all-clear buys you about 2 weeks to get in and remove the trees. This is not in the British Standard but it would seem to be a reasonably defensible position. I'm not touting for business but I have undergone the bat awareness training required by the British standard and if you are stuck for an all-clear I will coincidentally be in the Borders on Wednesday to Saturday on tree survey and could possibly do you a scoping survey. It's a written report, barely a page, minimal charge if it's an all-clear, slightly higher charge if a climb (possiblly with endoscope) is required. And a verbal OK on the day if appropriate. And to answer the question, a time limit is normal but 2 days is I believe unnecessarily stringent. PM if you want or carry on discussing here.

I'm convinced (after years of pondering and observing this very question) that it makes (or it can depending on species and age and situation) quite a substantial difference.

As for removing it, that's rarely necessary. But reducing its height and spread proportionately to reduce wind loads so that it is unlikely to fail catastrophically but leaving enough crown to allow it to continue for a decade or two might be a compromise. Who's going to be in the garden in a hurricalne if it snaps? It's all about striking a balance between likelihood of failure, consequences of failure, wanting to keep it for a while, the cost of doing so and taking objective advice. The guy who pointed out the problem was right to do so, but none of us have seen the whole context (or even the whole tree!) so he might be right or he might be over-reacting or he might be preying on fears. we don't know. Butr free advice usually comes at a cost. So it's worth pausing and weighing up the pros and cons.

I am in no doubt that you are right. it looks to me like well aerated K. deusta.

Pigeons. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=207

And the rest

I just came across these pics I took last year of how to tie a Distel witha fixed loop of rope. It's a slight improvement on the Schwabian I use, but only because it is easier to shunt along the rope with a pulley. May be of interest to someone who wants to try the Distel but hasn't got an eye-to-eye.

You cna have this one if you want.

It's an Ironwood all right. When you see one in autumn you will appreciate that they can have yellow, red and orange all on the same leaf at the same time.

Aww, thanks! Is that a Brexican Wave? Bad month, and that's without the Brexit.

Sorry, I was just joining the Brexit bandwagon of blaming europe for imposing all that wishy-washy human rights stuff on everything. But Gove will repeal the TPO and Human Rights Acts so that nothing stands in the way of his scorched-earth policies. He probably had an unhappy childhood too, so swings will be banned.

I am with you entirely on this. And clearly drilling holes is wilful. But the test is wilful damage, and within that there must also be a test of whether the intention of the act was to damage the tree. There must also be some de minimus cut-off. I'm sure this has come up before a few times, and I recall concluding that it must fail to be enforceable as a strict liability offence because intent needs to be demonstrated. Then there's the whole issue of whether the damage is trivial and whether it would serve any public interest to pursue prosecution. And has the public amenity that the tree provides been reduced or lost as a result of the damage? If not, case dismissed in my mind. There's a lot of people who wouldn't realise that screwing things into trees damages them. Yesterday I pulled 6 catherine wheels out of the stem of a tree. That's damage. And nailing them on was a wilful act. In a few years the tree would have had to swallow the nails and plastic bits. But it wasn't wilful damage. Hence I think the concept of unintentional damage. If the intent was to put up a swing, it's a fair cop. But if the person that did it didn't intend to damage the tree in what they considered any material extent, then the damage was unintentional. Or at least, that's the defence that would have to be argued.

Don't forget the tree's human rights being abused!

All classic Arbtalk knee-jerk reaction. None of us have seen the tree, or the damage, or know the context, but of course the Council is wrong to err on the side of the law and investigate properly.