05/20/2026
We are getting questions about the damage pictured in this photo...it is SAPSUCKER damage...here is some narrative from retired/former LSU horticulturists Dan Gill and Lee Rouse.
If you listen quietly outside during March and April, you may hear a distinct tapping sound in your neighborhood trees. A bird called the sapsucker is creating this tapping sound.
Sapsuckers are a migrating bird that spend their summers in the northern part of the country and the winters and early springs in the southern parts. Because the sapsucker is here for a short amount of time, you may miss seeing the bird itself. But if you look at your neighborhood trees or those in the forest, you may notice the distinct patterns they leave behind on the trunks.
The sapsucker will typically drill horizontally parallel rows of holes in the trunks or branches of trees. The tree will begin to ooze sap and sugars from the holes, which were drilled by the birds. The sapsucker will come back to the drilled holes and suck up the sap, which oozed out along with the insects that the sugars attracted.
The sapsuckers tend to be attracted to maple, ash, elm and oak. Typically, the health of the tree will not be compromised by the damage caused by the sapsucker so long as the damage occurs on the trunk or larger branches. However, as the sapsucker begins to drill on smaller or younger trees or smaller branches of a larger tree, this may have a detrimental effect. Oak trees are typically better at handling the damage caused by the sapsuckers.
The scars of the holes drilled by a sapsucker may be seen for many years after a bird has fed on that tree.
