Felling an Ant Infested Oak

Near the Western edge of our build site was a large oak tree that had to be removed.  Old oak trees have a tendency to rot on the inside and the center often becomes a convenient location for large black carpenter ants to make a nest.  You can generally tell which trees are rotted and hollow by the way in which the diameter of the tree widens more than normal at the base.  As the center of the tree becomes weak, the tree will grow more wood at the base to compensate.  Also, the trees tend not to be vertical but often lean quite a bit.  The lean makes it tricky to cut these guys down.  The easiest thing to do is to just let them fall in the direction of the lean.  However, due to the rotted center, the trunks are relatively weak and tend to split and crack before the trunk is completely severed.  Consequently, these trees can be rather dangerous to fell so you must be careful.  I had cut the front notch about 1/4 of the way through the trunk when I noticed the tree was already starting to lean into the cut.  This is unusual.  You can generally cut a healthy tree well past the halfway point before any displacement can be noticed. I realized at this point that I had to start the back cut and just let the tree crack and split.  I was only about an inch into the back cut when the tree broke its trunk and came crashing to the ground with a large thump.  Immediately, thousands of 1 centimeter long carpenter ants came streaming out of both the severed trunk and the remaining stump.  I guess I messed with their life style a bit that day.   

Here I am starting the front cut.

This is the severed trunk after the tree was down.
You can see the rotted wood in the center and the splitting at the left.

Disrupted carpenter ants scurry to get their exposed eggs to safety.

This is a video of the tree going down.