Tree is a crowd

The big tree, before I started

So my chainsaw with extension arrived the other day, and I booked my Sunday morning to cut down the evergreen tree which was in the middle of the land and pretty much in the way of everything. It didn't provide any practical shade, neither did I find it useful in any other way. Just a huge obstacle.
I started by cutting down the lower branches until I got to a point where I could secure the tree with a rope.

A few chops later

After cutting the forth branch from below, I noticed a small egg had fallen down and cracked. Unbeknownst to me, a pigeon had made a nest in the tree and had laid eggs in it.

God damn it!

I figured pigeons usually lay more than 1 egg, plus the pigeon in the nest was not moving despite the extremely loud noise from the chainsaw, so I guessed there must be more eggs in the nest. I stopped my cutting and packed the chainsaw and went in for a small break as it was getting too hot. I decided I would let the tree with its pigeon nest be until the chicks had hatched at least...

Super scared parent, but still not escaping

Parenting instincts must be very strong as the poor bird stayed in the nest all the time although it looked like it would get a heart attack from fright. (Haha, not flight)

Nest and egg in same shot

When I came back out, I started cleaning out the fallen branches, and that is when I saw the second egg under them.

After the cleanup: 2 eggs. So sorry.....

At the same time the pigeon had noticed the nest was empty and had flown away. I checked inside the remaining half-nest and there were in fact no more eggs. So the operation could commence. I brought out the chainsaw again, noticing that the pigeon was observing my every movement from nearby. I felt so mean for having destroyed its home.
Anyway, I chopped down a couple more branches and fastened a rope to the tree.

Tree - branches + rope

The rope was supposed to stop the tree from falling on me while I was cutting it from the south side. It was a bit tricky because the only direction it should fall was north. On south there was the fence which belongs to the train company so I could not risk the tree falling on it and breaking it. On west side I had planted lots of saplings (bad planning I guess) and on east side there is the narrow slope which is too dangerous to work on. So I stood on south side, which is a bit higher ground allowing me to reach high, and made a cut on the south-west side of the trunk, so that the tree would fall to the north by its own weight (it was already leaning toward north anyway) but just in case my calculations or way of thinking was wrong, and the tree would fall the opposite way, I used the rope to hold it back a little bit at least enough for me to leg it.

Before the final cut

It worked out fine, the tree fell to north, its top missing the recently installed water tank by a mere decimeter (phew, that was lucky) and the rope still holding it in place so it didn't continue rolling and bumping onto the house.

Tree is gone

The tree fell exactly at 12 o'clock noon. Now I just had to break up and clean out the fallen tree. Probably the sweatiest work so far, but I wanted to finish as much as possible.

From another angle.

I left the lower part of the tree intact as I think the roots will help keeping the ground stable. Plus I assume I will need to hang a picture or a hammock or something from it someday. Plus I want to see if it is the sort of tree that grows back branches from its stump.

How much wood would I chop chop chop

I didn't manage to clean up everything yet, but I have a big pile of logs to burn now. BBQ soon?