Speaking of tapping maples!

I guess a wood pecker tapped this maple, the sap is running out of it. Must be something in the wood, I guess I'll have some
nice firewood when I cut it down!

Pileated woodpecker, one of them did the same thing here on a live/healthy young black cherry tree near my deer stand. Right to the center of the trunk, I'll have to fill it, having left that tree to grow.

What do you fill the hole with? Several years ago I had a nice young maple in my yard that the carpenter ants got into and really damaged the tree. Killed all the ants one year with pesticide, but they came back the next year. After killing them again, I filled the cavity with spray foam. The ants never came back and the tree has grown around the foam and sealed itself. You could never tell the tree was half eaten away by ants. 150 years from now someone is going to cut that tree and be scratching their head, going "what the heck"???????????????????????

There is a coating arborists use after pruning or trimming, I've used that for the same purpose, maybe that would suffice, was also thinking of a handful of mortar, packed in just so, probably best to do some research first. Black cherry and other trees that I have seen will put up with an unbelievable amount of damage and still live, though some black cherry trees, on the mature side, I have taken down as it would not be long anyway. They can be almost fully girdled by something and still have a healthy top, I have dead ones where the water line came up from beaver, it was marsh, now a pond, bark off, and they have been there standing dead for like 30 years, that's better than treated lumber, as they are in standing water. I find it interesting to be selective when harvesting trees, as I have seen this place become forest over the years, most if not all was fields, pasture or the farm house and barn areas, I've taken down trees 20" at the butt in those places, mostly elm that just died. Those carpenter ants are something, those we have in abundance, they spread easily, I have had sub colonies in small chunks of wood. Whenever I see trees damaged by them I'll either try to remedy the situation or cut them down, to protect the healthy ones. There is enough standing dead elm for them, and the woodpeckers anyway. That pileated woodpecker is something else, fearless of me, I can walk right up to the one that has been here, took some shots and video early last summer, late spring as he flung off bark and rotted wood right onto me LOL !

Big birds; almost as big as a duck.
There are lots of them around but I rarely see them but from a distance.
A week and a half ago this one was working on an ash tree outside my
dining room window and I was lucky enuf to get a picture.