There are no tents; just leaf damage and lots of it. There are tent caterpillars in the area, of course, but they seem to come on later in the summer. Maybe these are young caterpillars? They're, at most, 2" in length. They also don't seem as fuzzy as the tent caterpillars I've seen.

How much damage do birds do? They got every cherry off of 6 cherry trees this year. These are 16 foot tall trees, not dwarfs. They took all the sweet cherries and all the pie cherries. They damaged apples on all the trees. The amount of damage varies by tree. They ruined all the Cortlands long before they were ripe, and they ruined about 1/3 of the fujis, again damage starts way before the apples can be harvested. They damaged 100% of my nectarine crop (I got 3 nectarines) 70% of my peach crop, and 80% of the apricots. The only reason I had apricots this year is because I picked them green. They will take 100% of a strawberry crop, going into the plants and walking around underneath them to get the fruit, pecking and breaking the skin on every berry that they don't actually eat. They will peck at and ruin an entire grape crop and strip raspberries bare. I got blueberries for 2 years before the birds discovered they were edible and then the birds stripped the entire crop in one day-- not ripe, of course, so I couldn't beat the birds to them They either eat the fruit, or peck it and ruin it long before the fruit is ripe. I have many varieties of birds that come to feed: wrens, robins, blue jays, mockingbirds, sparrows, and many I don't know the names of. There are not many birds that will not eat fruit. If it's got feathers and it isn't a raptor, it probably eats fruit. When there is fruit, they make a racket that calls in birds from all over the area. So if you think your fruit is safe because you don't have many birds, think again. Also, they learn that there is food at your place and they put you on their schedule and come back year after year, in increasing numbers each year. At one point, I did get a nice crop of raspberries because the neighbor's cat was a bird killer and discovered he could hid in the raspberry vines and kill a lot of birds. He was fast enough to kill them before they could eat much. I would prefer to not kill the birds. Many of those fruit eaters are also bug eaters, so they are serving a purpose in the garden. But if you expect to get berries, think about netting.

Drew51: Thanks for the blueberry link. I don't have my bushes in rows, so the drip irrigation tubing mini-dome looks like a great solution for me, and I already have all the parts I need. RedSun: I was hoping to avoid having to build something, but that was along the lines I was thinking. mrclint: Very interesting, but I think we'r going to have too many of those to be practical. Thanks for the responses everyone

My husband moved to Grove a few months before I did, and I was just kind of going back and forth. During the hottest part of that summer, a skunk was under the house, and tore his way into the vent pipes that carry the air conditioned air. It was that heavy foil type stuff so he could make a hole in it. He did. He couldn't get back out and died there. My DH worked for the Boy Schouts and his office was at home, so he not only lived here, he worked here. He opened all the windows and I think turned on 6 ceiling fans until someone could come get the skunk out. He said it was horrible. Needless to say, after we bought the house, I was quick to put a door on the crawl space and make sure that another animal could not get under the house. Then we had the heating and air folks come and replace all that vent system with something durable. That summer, a neighbor who is now deceased, trapped 28 skunks. He trapped them, threw a blanket over the trap and with the trap on his trailer, backed it into the water. He said none of them could swim, especially with that cage on their back. I know there are still a few around because I occasionally smell them. About a half mile from my house, I watched one come out of a culvert pipe and cross the road in daylight. Those scare me. My tolerance level is low for skunks, possums, amardillos, Japanese Beetles, and Squash bugs. (And especially humans who steal) LOL