something is eatting the bark of this holly

This is a male blue holly not sure of the exact name. Its located in the south east corner of Pa. Holly might be 15 years old. The HO covered the first wounds with tape and the chewing appeared again above the covered wounds. I have no ideas what it is any input would be a great help.

Never seen anything like that before. Is it happening in the winter?

I have seen something like that, Ill try and find it, remember reading about "boxing", might not be the same thing tho

That is sapsucker damage. Seems that is a particularly favorite tree of an aggressive feeder.

PJM said:

That is sapsucker damage. Seems that is a particularly favorite tree of an aggressive feeder.

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I agree. That's one crazy bird.

NCTREE said:

Never seen anything like that before. Is it happening in the winter?

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It happened back in Oct/Nov costumer just pointed it out. I find out, those sap suckers are kind of migratory and just pass by.

Somebody else posted the same thing a little while ago. It is sap sucker damage, I've seen alot of it but none that big, looks crazy. I have a customer that I couldn't figure out why his Holly tree was thinning out and dying until the second trip I saw the rows of damage higher up than I was looking. Crazy little birds, they'll come back year after year and they're not picky at all, not too many kinds of trees I haven't seen them on?

I've noticed customers that have suet feeders attract the sap suckers, they love that stuff! I had one in my yard for a year and all of a sudden i noticed sap sucker damage on my maples.