Gardening always has surprises

[Nimrod103]

This Spring, after 30 years of raising soft fruit in a large fruit cage, my early redcurrants and white currants have been stripped by what I assume to have been woodpigeons (which are a plague in this area). All these currants are still small and green, and normally I don't put the netting over until the first currants and raspberries start to turn a bit red.
Why now, and not for last 30 years?

[sg31]

This Spring, after 30 years of raising soft fruit in a large fruit cage, my early redcurrants and white currants have been stripped by what I assume to have been woodpigeons (which are a plague in this area). All these currants are still small and green, and normally I don't put the netting over until the first currants and raspberries start to turn a bit red.
Why now, and not for last 30 years?

I wonder if it is to do with the dry weather quite early in the year. It's not just woodies, I've had blackbirds take unripe strawberries. They also stripped raspberries one year.

[neversay]

Crikey, I'd better get the netting out!

[bungeejumper]

Have to admit that strawberries and lettuce are two things I've given up on trying to grow. The combined onslaught of slugs and pigeons has become too much hassle, especially now that UK suppliers can get strawbs and Romaines into my kitchen for most of the year, and at decent prices too. I can now grow other things in my strawberry bed, and they don't just crop for two weeks in June.

Mind you, I might change my view if I can ever persuade the pigeons to feed on the slugs instead of my strawberries!

BJ