First the squirrels, then the hawks, now the ravagers of tomatos

After finding the delicate balance between bird feeder equipment and squirrel marauders, we came home from vacation to find the Red Tailed Hawk had devastated the population of birds using our feeder as base camp.  He must have used the fence on the car port as his perch because from there you can see both feeder locations.  And he methodically took out all the birds and a couple of the squirrels.

For the entire time we were gone, Valerie never had to refill the feeders, when I was refilling once and sometimes twice a day.  And I had counted 5 squirrels.  When we returned there was an eerie silence and deadpan empty back yard, no birds and no squirrels and the feeders were full.

Yesterday the birds slowly began to return, and you can tell they are different from the last set.  Not as used to the movements of the dogs.  And there are only two squirrels, not the requisite five.

So today I look out and see this guy munching down on my tomatoes. He had invited 5 of his friends to dine with him and they were making short work of the tomato bushes.  They disguise themselves to look like tomato leaves and actually are pretty good at it!  I didn't see them at all.  And when I knew they were there, it took me a while to find them all.  And I found another one just now that I had missed earlier.

So hopefully I have them all. I didn't mind the hawks taking out the squirrels, but I kinda liked the birds.  Too bad the hawks can't develop a taste for the caterpillar guys.  That hook would probably hurt going down though.

glen and the poor tomato bushes---------