Horizontal drill holes (sometimes vertical) in neat rows on the trunk of the tree is a dead give away for yellow belly sap sucker damage. The damage is actually the result of this member of the woodpecker family but this woodpecker eats sap as well as insects and berries.

 

The sapsucker drills a series of holes (each hole a little smaller than the size of a pea) with their beak and then leaves them for a few minutes to hours so sap can accumulate. They then return and have a meal. As the wounds age, the tree responds  by starting to plug the holes  and the sap starts to gum/dry  up.  To counter this, the sapsucker just drills new holes or enlarges the existing ones,  If enough holes are drilled, the sapsucker actually damages the tree either because of a lack of sap moving in the tree and/or the number of holes act as a barrier to movement of sap up and down the tree (called girdling).

 

Damage is very common on fruit trees, basswood, birch, pine trees, tulip tree and especially mountain ash.

 

 Wrapping the  trunk  in burlap helps smaller trees but often you might have to wrap the tree trunk top to bottom.  Adding a bird feeder may help as the feeder acts as a distraction but sapsuckers will be sapsuckers - attracting them to a feeder may just invite trouble as they may notice your trees too. 

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