Damson Tree

Anybody got any idea what could be causing these large holes in our damson tree.
The holes are one and a half inches across, and three inches deep.
They are close to some fungus that we have chiselled away and treated with blue Bordeaux mixture.

Could it be a Woodpecker?

I did wonder about that. I’ll have a Google!
If it had been near to the boundary, I’d have thought that the neighbour had attacked it with a power drill and a hole cutter. It’s very neat.

Yep you’re right Veggie.
Thank you.
That’s goodbye to any damsons next year then. Both main branches are “holed” two thirds of the way through.

Nice to be right (for once) but, in this case, I'd rather be wrong!
Lovely birds to have in the garden though.

Yes I love the Yaffle noise as they swoop around.

We have them in my garden, I try to take photos if they are on the bird feeders but one quick move and they are gone. Although when I gardening sometimes I can sometimes hear them pecking away - but I have never seen a hole like that! Pretty amazing!

Could be they were showing you how to clear the fungus properly. Probably the wood was softened up by the fungus.
We have woodpeckers here, the red bottomed ones and I've never seen similar damage on any damson trees.

You could be right Mark.
The fungus attacked wood was very squelchy - do much easier to peck in to.
We bought a new damson tree about four years ago because of all the fungus on our old one, but having a new one encouraged the old one to “pull its socks up” and start producing again!
Sadly, the fruit from the new variety “Farleigh” is nowhere near as large, juicy and tasty as the one we inherited 22 years ago when we moved here!

All our damsons are self seeded in the hedgerows. There were 2 when we moved here that had very small fruit but they have both passed away. there are about 3 'new' ones appeared over the last 20 or so years that have much bigger fruit, halfway to the size of plums.
However, this year, I noticed some damsons with plum pocket disease so I don't know how long they will remain productive as I don't really have time to tackle it thoroughly.