When do your berries go?

Astraeus

Just wondered what people's experiences are of when the birds pilfer their berries? This is our first year of crab apples, pyracantha and viburnum. The former two have set a good haul of fruit but nothing is interested in them yet. When I planted the crab apple in March, it had a few berries left on it which the blackbird gorged on. Will we be waiting until then before the birds dive in?

B3

Holly berries definitely go before Christmas.
Pigeons eat the ivy berries as they ripen. Same with elderberries

Skandi

Holly is already gone, so are some other red tree berries we have no idea on name, pyracantha are also gone, cotoneaster are not touched yet. We have upwards of 15 blackbirds in the garden at any one time at the moment, they obviously bred a bit too well this year.

thevictorian

The local cotoneaster berries are still there and we can see the birds picking on the Holly at the moment. In our garden the rowan berries always go long before anything else, the red pyracantha are next and then they start on the orange pyracantha afterwards. Some of the windfall apples and those I left on the trees have been nibbled but we quite often still have berries and fruit next spring unless it's a cold winter.

Fire

Usually my pyracantha hedging has a healthy population of sparrows, blackbirds and robins living in and off it, but I have been very few this year and most of the berries are still there. In the elder tree there seem to be mostly wood pigeons gorging. I have planted a crab apple trees for the birds and I hope that they do take advantage of it when it does eventually fruit. When I had an ivy hedge, the berries nothing seemed to eat, but the flowers were a good source of nectar.

My wish is that something interesting eats the wood pigeons. We do have falcons around.

AnniD

The pyracantha and cotoneaster in the back garden have very few left, mainly thanks to the blackbirds and pigeons. The same plants in the front garden have more berries left at the moment. 
One shrub that never seems to be touched is the Snowberry.

Suesyn

Apparently there is a scientific reason why red pyracantha berries get eaten first but I can't remember what it is. The blackbirds also love the berries on Leycesteria Formosa, which probably accounts for the number of seedlings  every year.

B3

I have a rosebush which is covered in small hips every year. Nothing ever touches them. I wonder why.

Palustris

Rose hips have fine hairs inside them which makes them very  difficult for anything to eat.

B3

I didn't realise that.

didyw

My (orange berried) pyracantha is always the last to go.  This year the berries at the top have gone (easiest for the blackbirds to get to) but the lower ones are still there. Just looked - all the berries on a magnificent holly in a neighbour's garden have gone.