Is woodpeckers are destroying my tree an emergency?
Not urgent. Woodpeckers are reading the tree for you. Apart from sapsuckers they are not attacking it — they follow insects, and insects follow dead or decaying wood. Heavy foraging damage is evidence that something else got there first, so the bird is the alarm rather than the fire. Sapsuckers are the exception: they drill for sap on healthy trees, and while the rows look bad and can occasionally girdle a small limb, they rarely kill an established tree.
What changes while you wait
Sapsucker damage can be watched indefinitely with no action. Foraging damage on an ash should be acted on within the current growing season, because birds usually show up when the infestation is already well established. Deep excavation holes justify an inspection within a few weeks if the tree overhangs something you care about — not because the holes spread quickly, but because they mark decay that has been advancing invisibly for years and only just became visible.
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