Birdseye Maple Trees

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

There is a fair amount of birdseye around here and I've seen a lot in wood decks over the years, and in the woods. Birdseye is kind of funny. Sometimes you got the characteristic dents and the coke bottle bottom but when you cut the tree, no eyes. Some birdseye don't show up in the bark. Some birdseye is what they call thumbnail, which has bark pockets in the eye. Not worth much except to a crafter type. Highest price is for veneer but also goes by number of eyes. If it has only 7 eyes or less in a 3"x5" square, than no extra money. I saw one log once 14" diameter and 12'8" go for $800. I've heard of prices of $25 per board foot for a log on the landing, but that is for an outstanding log.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

Kevin, I haven't seen that paper but I saw another one about a decade ago from the USFS and Michigan Tech forestry school professors. I can spot a potential birdseye tree from 75 feet away, I've been doing for so long. I've heard that the Upper Peninsula of Michigan produces 90% of the birdseye. There is quite a bit here but quality isn't alway there. Another way to tell is on the end after it is cut the eyes will appear as lighter rays coming out from the center towards the outside. So it is easy to scan a whole deck of sugar logs to see one. Some say the tree experienced stress at some point in it's life but that isn't the whole answer. Where I find it, often there are more than one. Sometimes a half dozen or more trees. I see them most often on rocky sites or right on the wetter edge where the sugar maple changes to red maple type, but they can occur on a rich site too. I've got a dozen or so on my own land. It's better than money in the bank.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

Yeah Kevin you could have some. I find it sometimes near bedrock outcrops more than boulders though. There is a forester here that worked in New Hampshire and says there is more curly grain there than here. It is harder to see in the bark. Much more subtle. Here that is more in the soft maple. Sometimes it is just in the stump up a couple feet and ends there. Curly brings good money but not as much as birdseye. The Japanese went nuts over birdseye 10 years ago and were all over the place here buying it. I don't know if they still like it as much or not but don't hear of japanese buyers any more around here.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

Yeah it's true, there is a fair amount of birdseye here. I found 3 yesterday while cruising timber. They were all poor quality with rotten seams. A guy with a woodmizer might make money on them. I am going to borrow a digital camera later after the leaves are down to take pictures of my sugarhouse. At the same time, I will post birdseye pictures. I have four nice typical ones at the base of a north slope like you say. They really show the eyes in the bark and have the "coke bottle" base. I don't plan on tapping those.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Parker]

Hey Kevin- What is the name of the mill that saws the birds eye? I have cut some in the past and always had it custom sawn,,,when I have tried to sell the logs to "Birdseye Buyers" (SKYBURL) I have always gotten the "Thats not quite good enough" . Well it looks pretty good in my kitchen,,.I have always run into it on very stoney, ledgey,stressed out sites higher in elevation. Groton, Dorchester, North Wilmot ECT...A whole lot more curley maple around N.H. in my experiance. Are you sure you have Red Maple Birdseye?,,,thought it was only in the rockies....I have cut some nice rock maple curley, but never seen any red maple birdseye.....Parker

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Parker]

Kevin- Thats goose bay lumber- they have a log concentration log there for E.D.Bessy that Spencer Perry runs but they dont saw hardwood there-Carl, the owner say "theres no money in it" They do have a high end retail hardwood business there selling exotic hardwoods, But, thats all bought in.....Parker

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

I took some photos of my birdseye maple trees this weekend in the rain. They are posted on the mapletrader album. I hope to update my yahoo site later. Just go to the top of the page here click on album, then click on personal galleries, then on forester1 page. There are 4 birdseye trees in a row growing. They sometimes occur here in groups like that. Notice the lack of a prominent flare at the base, especially in the back trees. The so-called coke bottle base. Then there are a couple pictures of the bark. Also some new sugarhouse pictures. I hope to see others post some pictures here on the maple trader album and thanks to the maple trader guys for this great new feature.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Very Good-Nice to see things in color instead of black&white...Kevin

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

Kevin,
I've seen birdseye in a 5" diameter tree. That is about the smallest I've seen. You wouldn't get too much useable wood out of that size tree. Most trees I've looked at the ends after they are cut lose the eyes toward the center at about 4 or 5 inches in diameter. I've heard of birdseye in other species. One log buyer told me once he paid a lot of money for a birdseye black oak. I've seen what I thought was birdseye in a yellow birch but when I removed the bark, there were no eyes in the wood. That is one way to check is to remove the bark in a spot, but it wounds the tree and leaves it susceptible to staining or fungus infection. Another possibility is you could have curly grain in that cherry.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[mapleman3]

I thought about having bees, figure a nice crop for summer fall, but wife doesn't relish the idea... plus I don't have any fields or crop farms or orchards in the vicinity? oh well

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Addictive for sure...Kevin

[mapleman3]

maybe in the next few years 8) 8) 8) :wink: My brother in law wants to try also.. maybe we'll take a trip up north to see a few of your honey n sugarin operations next summer 8)

[mapleman3]

8) Thanks my friend.. will do sometime for sure

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

Thanks for the tape Kevin. The only thing about the birdseye is you don't know for sure what you have until you cut it. The eyes might end only a couple inches into the tree or only be in one side. The big money is in veneer quality birdseye, very rare even in sugar maple.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[forester1]

Hard to tell from the pictures if it is veneer. It could be. Usually those big birches have some rot in them. Plus veneer buyers are sometimes picky about things like small knots, sometimes not, depending how full the mill is. Once I came to a logging job where the logger was cutting up a log for fire wood. I looked at the log and it was a curly grain red maple with evenly spaced birdseye every 2 inches also. I never saw a log with both curl and birdseye. It was 24 inches in diameter and had a 6 inch hollow hole in it. He said none of the buyers wanted it since it was hollow so he was going to burn it. A guy with a band mill could have made some beautiful lumber from that log. :(

[sapper]

The few birdseye trees that I have and am aware of put out just as much sap as the others.

[saphead]

I was in an old farmhouse last week that my brother-in-law owns and he just had all the floors redone. I couldn't believe my eyes, scattered in with the regular hard maple was some of the most beautiful birdseye I've ever seen!

[sapper]

You can walk the railroad tracks in my area and see all the birdseye ties.

[forester1]

Lots of old buildings here with birdseye maple in the floors, especially old gym floors. I know of two buildings where the floors are all birdseye, built back in the early 1900's. A flooring company near here will place an extra person on the line and pick out birdseye pieces for a special order. It will cost a lot extra though.

[sapper]

Would that be Horner flooring which I think is in Calumet?

[forester1]

It would be Robbins Flooring in Ishpeming. At least they would do that a few years ago. I don't know about Horner, other than they are the largest maker of portable gym floors in the world.

[mapleman9000]

Forester1:
I just started reading all these posts on the birdseye. I had heard of it before from a salvage company based on lake superior, which was dredging up old logs from the lake. I did not realize that they were still growing. I was under the impresion that they were only old growth trees. You have gotten me interested though, I wanted to ask you if you had ever heard of birdseye in New York state in any quantity. My sugarbush is exactly as you descibed ideal. Rocky, North West slope with some soft maples mixed in. I will look as soom as I get a chance. I am actually going to school for forestry right now so find it a very interesting subject. Hope to become a woodlot consultant.

Gerry

[forester1]

Gerry,
I'm glad you are going into forestry. It's a great career I've never regreted going into. Jobs are kind of hard to find but keep at it and something comes up. I like it so much I plan continue to do some forestry consulting when I retire from my full time job in a few years. Birdseye can grow all over, even in trees that aren't sugar maple. It's just that this area, the upper peninsula of Michigan, has a lot of it. By a lot I mean up to about 1 in 400 trees or so in the best areas, like northern Marquette county where I am. It is in mostly old growth or second growth that hasn't been cut in 50 years or more. It seems to occur in a tree that was stressed from not enough sunlight sometime in it's life. Also I see a lot in areas of shallow soil over bedrock or near the water table. For some mysterious reason, they sometimes occur in groups of several near each other. But as more land comes under management or regular thinning, I expect birdseye will decline around here.

[mapleman9000]

Jerry,

You are right about the jobs, that is why I plan on going straight into woodlot management, where I can start my own business. Where I am there are a lot ofsmall and large dairy farms. With the financial truble they are having, all I have to do is show them how to utalize their unused land to produce quality timber, and the profit to be had in it and I should be set. The state hiers nearly no foresters and I am not looking to work for any of the logging companies, they seem to be mainly unethical in their land use around here.

Gerry