Is Something Eating My Live Oak Tree?

[Hakim]

Bird,

That surely is more than a bit mysterious.

I did a little more searching on Google. The attached image shows holes made a sapsucker woodpecker. I think it is very close to what you have in your photo.

Photos are from the USDA Wildlife Services.

Sap Sucker Woodpecker Holes

Sapsucker damage (horizontal rows of holes) to drill for sap attached.

/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Michael_E_Tx]

Our tree has many more holes than my picture. Our woodpecker is apparently pretty reclusive also. While there are holes as low as about 6 feet, the majority begin at about 12 feet and on up to about 18 feet. Most of the upper branches are ringed with holes in the horizonal pattern also. Pretty hard to get a good picture of.

Don't really remember how long it took us to spot our bird, but it was a long time. It is not a large or spectacularly colored woodpecker (or maybe sapsucker). It is a fairly small bird. It has a red head though, and it is nearly silent. If there is no wind, no fans on, no neighbor's barking dogs, etc., we can barely hear it when it is busy in the tree.

I don't think our bird is migratory, partly because it seems to be around for a good part of the year, and is most active in summer. Also, it favors this one tree time and time again. We will have been on our place for three years this July and it was only late last summer that I saw any sap dripping.

Good luck spotting your culprit! Birds are pretty interesting.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I have two Live Oaks and the first time I saw these holes I had a fit too.

It's a blessing. Woodpeckers going after the bugs.

Also this time of the year the Live Oaks do their shedding and look bad anyways. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[orangebluegreen]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I've never seen so many holes like that in one tree )</font>

Florida has a problem with bore beetles attacking pines. I’ve had a stand of pines where one would be attacked and a tree 15 feet away not one mark. These bugs were apparently what the woodpeckers were after. Some have died and others recovered totally. If you do have birds causing the holes you probably don’t see any bugs because the birds are doing a good job getting rid of them. I found during last years hurricane Wilma that branches weakened 30-40’ up snapped off because of the weakening.

 

[Bird]

Well, all the pictures make it appear that we have a very secretive woodpecker or sapsucker. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif I wonder why he would pick on that tree and not the other one, but guess it might be because the one with all the holes is in the shade nearly all the time while the other one is in full sunlight most of the time. Perhaps the tree in the shade all the time is more likely to have some kind of insects the bird is after? And Harv, until we bought this place last September, it had been almost 30 years since we had a live oak in a yard, so I didn't remember when they shed. It was the 24th of last month that I sprayed all the trees with the Ortho Max and then about a week ago I noticed both the live oaks had a lot of yellow/brown leaves that concerned me a bit, but now they seem to have recovered from that.

 

[jinman]

Bird, your liveoak with the holes from the sapsucker is in stress. The tree without holes is not in stress or is in less stress. What happens is a tree in stess will produce more sugar in its sap and attract both sapsuckers and bugs. In a way, it's nature's way of dealing with a tree that's on the verge of dying. If you figure out what is wrong with the tree and get it healthy, the sapsuckers will go away and the tree will recover slowly. There are too many varialbles that might be causing the tree to be in stress. It may be the dry condiitions or something in the soil, but I'd bet the tree with no holes is a healthier specimen with a better root system.

 

[Bird]

Jim, that makes sense to me, but I don't know of any difference between the two live oaks except the difference in shade and sun. Both trees had limbs so low you couldn't walk under them when I bought the place, so I pruned them, and the one in question got the more drastic pruning for a couple of reasons: (1) it had some limbs touching the roof and rain gutter, and (2) it had some limbs touching the power line coming to the house from a pole out back.

 

[JazzDad]

Those of us in a good portion of Texas need to be careful when we trim our oaks. If the saw is not decontaminated between trees, we can spread the Oak Wilt virus. Unfortunately, we can't do anything to stop critters from spreading it.

 

[scott_vt]

Hi Bird,
If its any consolation, I have some oaks on my property that have the same type of pecker holes /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Definitely a woodpecker, they can make a racket at times /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

scotty

 

[froggy]

Bird,

Check out the picture of sapsucker damage at Dirtdoctor:

web page

froggy