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Monday, February 6, 2012
Holes in Bradford Pear
I just noticed these holes in the big Bradford pear in my yard.
They're regularly spaced, about a quarter-inch apart, forming lines every five inches or so from about a foot above the ground as high as I could see-- and they are only on the southern half of the trunk, and on just one of the several trunks:
I was pretty sure a woodpecker was at work (an alternative would have been some sort of insect emerging from the holes), but the photo below of a burr oak at Hidden Springs State Park in Illinois persuade me to the former hypothesis. They were made by a sapsucker.
Sapsuckers eat sap which contains occasional insects. That, I think, explains the regularity of the holes.
The holes were likely from Yellow-bellied Sapsucker... Seriously.
ReplyDeleteWe'll, I'll be a dadblasted yellow-bellied sapsucker!
ReplyDelete