strawberry thief - sort of

[izzy_mack]

Any one know what has happened to my strawberries? I have dealt reasonably well with snails and blackbirds but I have just gone out to pick any ripe ones and there are hardly any berries left on the bushes. Something has "picked" virtually every berry, white unripe ones included, and left them in heaps. I haven't seen anything like it before and I've grown them for some time.

[jansman]

Birds. They know the exact second that any berries are at their best! I have a cherry tree from which I NEVER get any fruit. The birds will strip it in hours!

[izzy_mack]

Birds. T

I did wonder but they aren't just eating the ripe fruit they are picking the fruit off the bush and making a pile of it in corners. Unripe fruits too, it's weird.

[Medusa]

How strange! I had a thief too. I left my two best heads of broccoli to harvest the next day. Arrived home to my husband telling me that we must have a new kind of pest as the broccoli had disappeared. It turned out to be one of our daughters who visited, saw it and thought she would take it home for her tea.

[jansman]

Birds. T

I did wonder but they aren't just eating the ripe fruit they are picking the fruit off the bush and making a pile of it in corners. Unripe fruits too, it's weird.

Squirrels?

[tarmactatt]

Had squirrels decimate my strawberries this year, they nibbled the stalks above the ripe and unripe fruits. Sounds like you might have squirrels or mice?