The woodpecker holes tell us of another biological process happening inside and now outside the tree. Boring beetles enter the tree to feed and lay eggs from which larvae emerge. The woodpeckers are drilling to find and feed on the larvae. The beetle and woodpecker holes provide access for wood-decomposing fungi, and the tree responds by sending sap to fend off the intruders. Sap seeping from the woodpecker holes flows down the blackened trunk. In this particular story we also see the larger story of a vast, biologically diverse, forest where new life is constantly emerging from, and because of, dead and decomposing organic matter.