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I have so few plums this year that I have carefully watched my last resort wild plums, about an inch diameter, slowly mature.

Late last week I thought they would be ready for picking at the weekend, but when I went armed with a couple of bags on Sunday, they had all gone!  I don't know how many there had been, perhaps 100-200 on four trees.  There were no signs of the plums, no discarded stones and every one had gone even the ones at the very top and those that were not quite ripe.  The trees are surrounded by long grass and many of the plums were 20 feet off the ground on flimsy twigs, the grass wasn't trampled so the thief was not human.

It's the first time in 12 years that this has happened and I am absolutely baffled.  Any ideas who the thief was?  What would take so many plums in such a short time, squirrels, buzzards, crows, etc, it happened too quickly for wasps and there was no debris and as I said it wasn't human.

Think I'd go for the squirrel option if humans haven't been involved.

Quote from: green lily on September 19, 2012, 20:19:20
Think I'd go for the squirrel option if humans haven't been involved.

If it was squirrels I'd expect to find a few buried somewhere quite nearby - if it was humans they must have used a long-armed thingumabob with built in net. No sign of any ladder / step in-prints in the grass?

It wouldn't have been a flock of... of... crows?

We had a crow busy fishing by the side of our pond... little s-o-deee. He/she it waltzed off with a couple of small goldfish and one lovely bigger red one. I'd imagine a flock of them could clear many plums if they fancied them. 

I'd plum  for it being squirrels too! Although I'd have thought they would have eaten some in the tree and a few stones would be lying about, but I guess if the grass is long they wouldn't be that easy to spot. Squirrels have raided all the hazel nuts around here as usual.

What about the stems? Can you see if they were plucked off? We have a lot of squirls because we are living in woodland but it seems rather strange squirls have taken off all your plums...........

I would accuse birds but there would be loads of stones around.  Are you really sure that it was not human.   We have squirrels too but they do not seem to eat that many plums.

What about aliens?  Perhaps they are bored with crop circles, perhaps they are after plums now.

I've had them all blown off, but at least they were still there, somewhat slug-eaten. Disappearing plums is something else!

Not foxes with Pogo sticks?
       
Unlikely but, after finding one sunbathing outside the conservatory in full daylight, nothing would surprise me!  It stretched and ambled off giving me a disgusted backward look as it went.

Thanks for your thoughts so far on plum raiders and puns or is that pluns!

There are no footprints, no stones on the ground and no pogo stick marks.  Squirrels are favourite, but would they take the entire but small (c200) crop in three days.

I tried checking out fruit bats, but apart from gaining a better undersanding of their reproductive antics, can't find out if they take plums (in the UK).  Is there a bat expert out there?

Some, though not all, of ours were taken by parakeets.  I'm not sure whether they'd eat the stones as well, though.

Quote from: planetearth on September 22, 2012, 09:33:50

I tried checking out fruit bats, but apart from gaining a better undersanding of their reproductive antics, can't find out if they take plums (in the UK).  Is there a bat expert out there?

Do we have fruit bats in the UK? I thought they lived in tropical climates (South America and maybe Africa). I may be wrong. 

Nah..all UK bats..those with wings..are insect eating sort. Have you had flock of starlings nearby? It is that time of the year that they group up and if they set their mind for some crop, it don't take for long for them to clear you out of fruit.

Quote from: goodlife on September 22, 2012, 22:44:09
Nah..all UK bats..those with wings..are insect eating sort. Have you had flock of starlings nearby? It is that time of the year that they group up and if they set their mind for some crop, it don't take for long for them to clear you out of fruit.

Very true - every year they stripped our large mountain ash of red berries in about a day. Not seen quite so many starlings as usual this year..... perhaps because we've lopped the tree 

Maybe the bats are not so far fetched.  I think our local zoo allows their fruit bats access to the outside.