Just an update.
I have now removed the ivy, there was one small birds nest but thousands
of
woodlice and I would think that they may damage the tree.

By tickling it?

They live on soft, usually decaying, vegetable matter and cause no
harm in the garden except occasionally to seedlings (and not often
to them). They were merely sheltering.


They were not just sheltering but living there eating either the ivy or the
tree, when they run out of preferred food they eat what they can get, in
this case they would have caused possible entry for pathogens into the tree.


--
Art
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