What is eating my exterior (window) silicone sealant? & how can I stop it?

[M4ple]

Last autumn I removed and replaced the silicone sealant under my kitchen window. It was a straightforward easy job that I've done many times before. I used quality exterior silicone -the same tube for the front & rear of the house. I've had a look recently and I'm shocked to see that it looks like it's been 'eaten' away. No issues at the front of the house. How on earth is this happening? I've never had this issue before. I guess I'm going to have to strip it out and do it again, major pita. Does anyone know what I can do about this? Anyone else had this issue? Nothing rests on this windowsill and it's west facing.

I've seen magpies pecking at the sealant on my skylight. I think they take it to nest build.

This looks like tiny nibbling rather than tearing off strips. Paging @PigletJohn on the off-chance he might have some pearls of wisdom...

dunno.

Ants ate through silicone at our house....

Magpies have pecked away at ours, too.

Magpies love that stuff!

How strange! I've had this happen too. As there are magpies in a tree just outside my garden I guess they are the likely culprits.

How odd! I hear a kind of munching sound under our front window most nights after dark. It’s fairly low - about hip height but if I dash out to look I never see anything like a bird, fox etc so I assume it’s something tiny. The sound can be quite loud inside and makes me jump. It stops if I bang the wall.
Any ideas Mumsnet wise ones?!

@M4ple - any silvery trails? I'm just thinking slugs or snails?

Wasps chewing wood to build a nest.

I know of somebody whos cat has removed most of the silicone sealer from the window frames

Very curious, I had a Google and snails could be the cause denbraven-website-prd-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/TB122016-021_ANIMAL_DAMAGE_GB.pdf

There’s no wood there, just the upvc windows that were here when we bought the house and whatever the stuff is that they put in to hold them in place.

There is a ridiculous excess of snails in my garden. If it's not the magpies, then I guess the snails got bored with eating all my plants and decided to start on something more substantial.