Adult EAB beetles lay eggs on the bark of ash trees. When the eggs hatch, the larvae bore into the bark and begin feeding. This disrupts the movement of nutrients and water within the tree, girdling it and causing the tree to die. Fortunately, Vermont’s forests provide habitat for a variety of bark-foraging birds, such as woodpeckers and nuthatches. When these birds are working their way up and down the trunk of a tree they are often searching for an insect to eat including, as it turns out, emerald ash borer larvae. 

A 2013 study conducted in Ohio (Flower et al) provides valuable insights into the interactions between forest birds and emerald ash borers. Results of the study show that in a forest impacted by EAB, bark-foraging birds forage more heavily on ash trees than non-ash trees, and that they prefer to forage on ash trees that show signs of health decline, presumably due to EAB impacts, instead of foraging on trees that were more visually healthy. This would suggest that the birds use visual clues to identify which trees are infested. The study also reports that a sampling of 46 ash trees shows that birds significantly reduce the densities of EAB larvae by upwards of 85%. So, although the trees that the birds foraged EAB from are past the point of saving, there may be up to 85% fewer adults able to eventually emerge from the trees and fly to infect more ash trees.