Beginner Gardening: @#*! Robins, 1 by Ozark

Ozark wrote:
I planted rows of sweet corn a few days ago, and yesterday I was happy to see that it was up. I planted two seeds two inches apart, once every foot in the rows - to be thinned to one plant every foot later. I think every seed sprouted.

Today, here's what I found - the corn is gone, all of it. I had forgotten that last year I saw a robin going down the rows right after the corn came up, using each new sprout to locate, dig out, and eat the seed underneath. Last year I saw what was happening before many plants were lost, and I tied strips cut from plastic grocery bags to the string over each corn row. Those moved with the wind, and the robin(s) did no more damage. This year I forgot all about that, and lost all the corn seedlings.

I've grown a garden at this house for 22 years, and last year was the first time this happened. I BET it's the same bird, or birds, remembering this trick learned last year. Pretty sharp, but pretty ungrateful too considering how I throw worms to the robins that hang around while I'm weeding, and I leave cut pieces of white string in the garden for the robins to use in building their nests. Ah, well.

You can see from the evenly-spaced holes down this row where some of my corn seedlings WERE.

Replanting (and adding plastic-bag wind strips to the rows). I should have remembered - the robin sure did!