Oregon Ash trees are a beautiful mess. Lounging in its shade in the summer, all seems to be in order with its full, lush canopy. As the leaves fall off and its branches are revealed, I am left wondering, “What the heck has happened to this tree?”
As this tree matures, its shape usually becomes perfectly disordered. The forces of nature love to sculpt Oregon ash trees into a magnificent structure of tangled branches, a meandering trunk, dead limbs, and numerous cavities. Thus, you don’t really see this tree being used in a planned landscape in the city or around someone’s home.
This past bird breeding season I tracked the location of many nests. Along the river path that begins at the White Oak Pavilion, the trail is lined with Oregon ash trees. Nearly every one of them has a natural cavity somewhere along its trunk, and most of them had a cavity-nesting bird using it—European starlings, northern flickers, white-breasted nuthatches, and Bewick’s wrens. In the branches of the tree, there were robins, mourning doves, cedar waxwings, and Bullock’s orioles.
Even though it doesn’t have the majestic shape of the Oregon white oak, the incense cedar, or the Douglas fir, the Oregon ash is an unsung hero.
