Educated, Experienced & Excited About What We Do!

Learn / Ask The Landscape Professional

My maple tree has straight rows of 1/4" holes in it. Do I have some sort of insect that's causing damage? Colleen

Answer

Woodpecker Tree Damage The holes are being made by "Yellowbellied Sapsuckers", a species of woodpecker that doesn't have a yellow belly and doesn't "suck" the sap! They do however; rely primarily on tree sap as their main food source and they get to it by drilling 1/4" diameter holes (called "wells") into the tree. As the sap oozes into the wells, the sap-sucker uses its brush-like tongue to lap up it up. Hummingbirds and other birds and bats also use the sapsucker wells for feeding. Insects that are attracted to the sap also make up the sapsuckers menu. Sapsuckers have been observed to drill holes in over 1000 types of trees and woody shrubs, but they really like trees with high sugar content in their sap. Their favorites include fruit trees (and their fruit), paper birch, beech, sugar maple, red maple, hickory and pines.

You will often see tree sap running down the bark from sap-sucker wells and although this looks terrible, is generally doesn't cause the tree much of a problem. Trees can be threatened if the sapsucker damage is extensive with a large number of holes that go all the way around the tree. If you want to protect your tree during the months the sapsuckers are here, you can use a loose wrap of burlap or hardware cloth (metal mesh) around the area of the holes. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are unique in that they are the only species of woodpecker that is truly migratory. They are here with us in the spring, summer and early fall and head south as far a Central America, Texas and the Bahamas in the late fall and winter. In addition, yellow-bellied sapsuckers are the only species of woodpecker that uses live trees for feeding. Yellowbellied sapsuckers are classified as migratory non-game birds and are protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act; it is against the law to kill or harm them.

View As PDF

View a PDF representation of this article To view a PDF of this article, please click here.

 


About Linda Lillie

Linda K. Lillie is the President of Sprigs & Twigs, Inc, the premier landscape design and maintenance, tree care, lawn care, stonework, and carpentry service provider in southeastern Connecticut since 1997. She is a graduate of Connecticut College in Botany, a Connecticut Master Gardener and a national award winning landscape designer for her landscape design and landscape installation work.

Topics

Enter a search term above, or select a category below to browse the available articles.
Lecture Series

Our weekly "Ask The Landscape Professional" series is expanding to include video lectures on various topics. To watch some of our lectures online, please click here.

Submit Your Question

Do you have a question to Ask The Landscape Professional? Click here to contact us and send us your question!

The Official Landscape Company of Mystic Seaport

Official Landscape Company of Mystic Seaport.