North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Hilborn.E@epamail.epa.gov]

Thanks for everyone's input.  It is interesting to hear other's
experience with birds. I must have a lot of avian fruit eaters at my
place.

I mentioned in an earlier post that my Illinois Everbearing mulberry
bore little fruit.  Well, I see this year that it sets a LOT of fruit.
I am watching it closely this year and I now estimate that 98% of it is
eaten by birds at the light red color. I rarely see a black fruit and
usually when I do, it is damaged or just a portion is left on the stem.
That is truly a big tree to cover...

I inspect my blueberries daily. In the early years of the planting I
would get many blueberries without protection from birds. Lately
however, I get to harvest some berries in early July, then overnight I
find that all of my bushes are stripped of 95% of berries. Even the
small hard green ones.

In the early years I could harvest from late June to Labor Day.  Lately,
on bad bird years I get about 2 early weeks of harvest.

Just some observations.

Betsy Hilborn 7a NC