Strange bird. Almost seems like an animal of some kind. Do you have rats? Rats cause a lot of damage here. FL has some exotic birds though, so maybe they eat tomatoes. We use that shiny bird tape on our fruit trees, and have resorted to little organza bags to hide ripening figs from the birds. Good luck! Those are sad photos.

Agree. I'd be looking for something besides birds there.

Dave

Yeah, I'm not sure, I did have some mice, but the problem stopped when I cut off access to the plant (they were attached to a fence). I'll check if they can get to them another way, cause it is just the couple plants they were able to get this time.

Thanks

Both critters and birds can cause a lot of problems with harvests. I'd put out a rat trap and see what you catch.

We planted a fig tree to shade our West facing dining room window and something started eating it's branches. Whatever it was left leaves on the deck, but every day more branches would be gone. Someone suggested wiring traps to the trunks, and we caught many rats that year. Rats can climb.

The poor tree didn't even grow last year. It was trying hard to recover from being half eaten. This year the traps went on at the first sign of leaves, and we caught two rats. The tree is in full growth mode this year making up for last year I guess. Each branch (and there are many) has about 30 figs on it. We still keep loaded traps in that tree.

Looks like rats. Get one of those rat bait stations and smear peanut butter on the bait and it will help.

You can get those white micro mesh bags with draw-string closing and put those around the tomato. Rats can tear them if they really want but so far they have kept the rats from eating the melons in my garden. This year I'm going to make sure I have a good stock of the bags....

Birds used to peck many of my tomatoes (for moisture, I assume.) My air-conditioner is close to my garden, so I put a pan under the end of of the condensation hose, providing the birds with great drinking water!

No tomato pecking since!

The birds have been doing such a fantastic job of keeping the garden pests down this year that I wouldn't begrudge them a few tomatoes. But, as others have said, I find that they leave my tomatoes alone if I leave out some water for them. Last year, they did occasionally test-peck my red cherry tomatoes, but they seemed to learn pretty quickly that tomatoes weren't really tasty to them and eventually stopped.

Strawberries and grapes, on the other hand... I just give up on those and let the birds have them. The plants were gifts from a relative that I only keep in the garden so as to not hurt their feelings, anyway.

So my bird problem turned to be a squirrel problem, I discovered a squirrel nest in the tree right next to my garden, he has done some damage, but I have had an abundance of tomatoes so far, so if it's only a couple here and there, I will learn to share. Now my biggest problem is the hot and humid weather we are known for. Im about to replace my current plants with a new batch of plants for a second season hopefully. I have mortgage lifter, prudent purple, and black krim about to get planted out in the next couple weeks. Hope all goes well for them.

I have chipmunks who like to eat my tomatoes. I have actually watched one chumping away on a ripe tomato. Now, I just leave a couple of grape tomatoes sitting in the aisle. When I come back the next day they are gone and the remains end up in other beds through out the garden. I am going to order some hav-a hart traps to get rid of them.

Chipmunks are a weird garden resident. Sometimes they do nothing but look adorable and occasionally dig some holes for mysterious reasons. Sometimes, they raid the veggies and become a pest.

Has anyone tried capsaicin sprays like Pepper Wax or a homemade version to dissuade mammalian pests?

It does look like rodent (chipmunk or squirrel). The suggestion to make water available is a good one, but I find they still love to snack (bite out of each tomato, grrr).

Yesterday a grey squirrel kept climbing up onto a pole birdfeeder (the baffle is too small). I took a few party balloons, inflated them and tied them onto the pole. KA-BAM! That has kept him at bay for a while.

I have one red robin that likes to feast on my tomatoes. I was pretty mad at him at first...I would pull the tomato he was feasting on and throw it away so then he would go to another. Then I started just leaving the tomato, which was always a ripe one. He would just eat on that one tomato till it was completely gone. I figured it wasn't such a bad deal after all considering disease is not a problem this year and I have more then I can eat anyway....

That is rat damage. That is the way they eat my citrus...always hogging out the insides and leaving one edge of the rind. Kill those suckers!