Sunflower seedlings severed AND PULLED OUT!

Usually, when I plant sunflower seeds, the seedlings get chopped off (severed) by some pest (very clean cut) about half-way up the stem. I go outside in the morning to find the severed seedlings laying on the ground next to what is left of the stem. I always find this in the morning, never any other time of day or night.

So I figured this must be a cutworm. Right?

However, today, I found something a little different. I found one my my sunflower seedlings not completely severed about half-way up the stem and the seedling was pulled out root of the ground! Certainly this could not be caused by a cutworm! (Please see attached pictures)

I am thinking that this is being done by a bird whose intention is to get a bug off of the stem and as a result ends up cutting the stem. And in the case of this morning, perhaps the bird had a difficult time getting the bug and ended up pulling the whole plant in the process, but not quite severing the stem with his beak.

My guess is that the bird was trying to get a slug because one of the baby leaves of the seedling does appear to have slug damage on it.

Any help on identifying what's causing this to happen would be appreciated. This severing has also happened to me in past years with other flowers (like nasturtiums and small marigold plants), but never vegetable plants. But never have I seen a partial severing with the seedling pulled completely out of the ground.

This message was edited Jun 11, 2018 1:13 PM

Well this forum isn't as hoppin' as it used to be when I was a lurker years ago! lol

Anyhow, for anyone that is interested, I found out what is happening.

As I suspected it is a bird that's doing this: HUGE crows. I know because I caught one in the act today. Chopped another seedling in half for no reason that I could tell. Minutes before the deed was don, I had been looking at my remaining seedlings (@ 6:30 AM) and did not see any slugs or bugs on them. The crow flew into my garden bed and I watched him to see what he would do. Sure enough, he walked right up to one of the seedlings, cut it in half with his beak and flew off like it was his job to kill sunflower seedlings. lol

I guess with the seedling in my pics, the perpetrating crow didn't get a good hold of it well enough to snap it in half and ended up yanking on it and pulled it out of the ground.

Boy, if it ain't one pest it's another. It's a wonder we gardeners can get anything to grow!

Oh, ha. Crows. Ok. When you said bird I was thinking starling or cardinal, and my brain was saying 'really, do those have the strength and size to pull a plant out of the ground?' But crows are definitely big enough. Maybe they just want a bite? They're omnivorous, so it's possible they really are eating a bug off that you couldn't see, or that they were just eating the stem.

Birds are said to love eating the embryonic leaves off of sunflower seedlings (the second pair of leaves that form) so this could also be what they were after. I have also heard of them damaging the sunflowers when trying to eat bugs off of them, as SummerStorm said. Adding some kind of protective cover to your sunflower seedlings until they are a few inches tall, and have their second set of true leaves should make all birds lose interest in eating their leaves. Hope this info helps you, and they leave your plants alone.