Stay away from my tomatoes, you obnoxious birds!

My makeshift bird shield to ripen tomatoes on the plant instead of picking early

As if it weren't bad enough that my tomatoes are suffering from early blight, all the ripe ones have been sampled by the local birds. I don't want to pick them early. They taste so much better when they're ripened fully on the vine!

The few tomatoes (or tomato halves) we did get to eat have been delicious. I'm no stranger to fresh summer tomatoes, but I honestly don't remember anything better. The one shown below was growing on a broken stem that I had splinted together. I cut off the entire piece of the vine as soon as the tomato started ripening, and I placed it in a vase of water until it was ripe. So it managed to avoid bird damage.

Here's to hoping my bird shield (a plastic fruit container like berries usually come in) keeps the birds away without trapping moisture/heat or blocking sun and that my tomato plant recovers enough from early blight to produce more deliciousness. Now I just need to buy some more berries or pre-cut fruit because I only had one container!