Hi Tweets,

Susan L. Collicott writes:

(snip)
>We used osage orange
>in exhibits. It was the only wood that lasted more than a few days on the
>macaws' island: their sharp beaks whittled oak as fast as balsa wood.
>It's hell on saws though...

Another unbelievably tough, heavy wood is larch larix sp. On a bird survey
in the southern Interior of BC a few years ago, some of my study plots were
in old-growth mountain larch L. occidentalis forest. The wood is so dense
and iron-hard that a 100+ meter (300+ ft) tree would typically be no much
more than one meter (3 ft) in diameter for most of its height, and totally
rigid. When the wind blew hard the doug-firs and redcedars might bend, but
the larch moved back and forth straight and inflexible as a ruler. Because
of the larch wood's imperviousness, woodpeckers can't bore holes in it, nor
can they find nesting cavities in it. About all that drilling insectivores
can do with a larch is sit in it.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)