Found this damage on my apple tree earlier in the week. First thought was squirrel damage but I’m not convinced. Any ideas what is happening to the tree?

Something deer height having a chomp? Kids playing with it?

No deer in the city centre, we have foxes but they are more into our chickens! Definitely not the children.

Tiny screen. Apple canker?

nive beaver…

Probably magpies or jackdaws searching for food.

Mrs Bruce suggested Fire Blight after a search through the RHS book of tree problems. Possibly with a bit of help by a garden visitor.

Squirrels

“ How to Repair Tree Bark Damage by Squirrels

If squirrels only ate the bark on one side of your tree’s branches (less than ¼ of the circumference), the branch will survive and the wound will eventually heal.

With more than ¼ eaten, though, the odds of survival decrease. There’s less hope if the branch is chewed all the way around.

Prune branches with a lot of damage and leave any with less damage. Don’t cover wounds because research has shown that this delays healing and can even encourage disease.“

Squirrels might have helped but if you look at the more intact branches the bark is lifting.

Probably magpies or jackdaws

We do have at least 2 magpies and a couple of what I thought were crows frequently in the garden.

It does look like the bark is lifting when you get up close. It is quite wide spread, an area nearly two meters long. Wasn’t there last summer or earlier in the winter.

Doesn’t look like it’s being eaten.
Is it on a majority of the branches? Or just a few?
I’d be tempted to take prune off the branches with it on providing there will still be a good amount of tree left.

It might be the hard frost we had. I read on gardening site about people saying the bark was peeling off tree trunks and a few replies said it was the hard frost.

No leaves on mine yet, but a couple of days ago I was checking it out and there were bloody ants all over it, presumably looking for aphids! I’ve got a pump-up sprayer with home-made aphid spray, so despite it still only being in March, I’m spraying the tree already.
It was covered with aphids last year. 🤬