| Sapsucker Damage |
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Sapsucker Damage to Trees and Large Shrubs Yes, there is a bird called the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker and it is doing considerable damage to the bark of local trees and large shrubs. The damage is like no other you may have seen, looking like someone had riddled your tree’s trunk with a hail of machine gun bullets or cut out of pattern of side-by-side squares from the tree bark.The damage appears as evenly-spaced round holes in even lines. The holes are about 3/8” in diameter and go down about 1/4” deep into the bark. Beside these round holes, there could be square sections gouged out of the bark in rows as well. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is a bird that, like the woodpecker, is capable of pecking away at the bark for the purpose of seeking its food. As the name indicates, the sapsucker pecks down through the bark to the green cambium layer below the bark where sap-carrying vascular tissue is found. The holes fill up with the plant’s sugary liquid sap, which well up in the holes. The sapsucker drinks his fill and makes new holes from which to extract more sap. Although the bark of the tree or shrub sustains significant damage to the bark, the injured tree or shrub often survives since little permanent damage is done to the living cambium. The damage in intricate and somewhat artistic, but damage nonetheless. The damage is permanent; it the same as if one carves their initials into the bark which will be visible for the life of the tree. Unfortunately, there is no way to heal the damage or to prevent the sapsuckers from gathering food in this manner.
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