Kris,
If you are worried about row cover smothering the tomatoes, you might want to consider deer netting. It has larger holes, but when we need to protect our fruit trees, we put a double layer of deer netting over the trees, and that keeps birds and even grasshoppers off.
Deer netting is cheap (we paid $10 for a 10' wide roll that is very long, don't remember exactly) and being black, it isn't terribly obtrusive. Of course, you have to lift it to pick, but there is a down side to everything! Other than training a hawk to hover over your garden, this is the only solution I can think of.

i think marlin gardener is on track.

Deer netting sounds similiar to the the bird netting that is sold in the big box stores here. Branches like to grow right through the holes, tho, so you have to vigilant about that.

i put a bird bath in my veg garden to attract bug eating birds. Got the idea from this forum. Ha! All it seems to serve as is a fancy beak wash to be used after feasting on my cherry toms!

There are a lot of crows around here but I have not seen them to eat tomatoes. Crows are not vegetarians , I think.
Give them some leftover bread, table food. They much rather eat those. The only reason that I think crows may eat tomatoes may be to get some water out of them, for thirst.

great advice everyone, thank you. I knew there must be something like this just didn't know what to look for. I was thinking maybe mosquito netting but I'll look for bird or deer netting.

I can't find anything else that would eat the circular chunks out of the tomatoes leaving the uneaten parts on the vine and whole cherry tomatoes so I think it's the birds. The crows are pretty aggressive outside. I could try some sort of bird bath I guess to give them water. Usually my son's sand/water box has some water in it that the cats and I guess the birds could drink. but maybe it's too hard to get to i'll try a shallow dish.

There are a lot of fruit eating birds around that love tomatoes, but not the crows. I don't mind some of my tomatoes being eaten by birds. I like birds. They also eat a lot of bugs. I would just leave the partially eaten ones around the patch. The birds will come back often and eat more of them rather than other ones (sometimes!)

I'm in the Bay Area also, got some crows around (too many for my liking), but never seen them go for toms.
Rats? Possums? Squirrels? Does the taking/mutilation happen at night? I think crows work daylight hours so you would see them perching on your plants and they ain't shy so you would hear some squawking.
As soon as your tomatoes get some color, you might harvest and then let them ripen in your house. I do this with all my big toms and they still taste real good.

Here in Los Angeles we have huge flocks of crows 60-100. I have never seen crows acting this way . And there are large numbers at the beach,ie:right where the sand meets the waves on the beach with the seagulls. I have also seen Sea Turtles laying eggs in La'Ballona Creek in the fresh water part (east of Lincoln Blvd).

Hmm, well I just don't know. I've heard crows could do it. They could be ravens I don't know how to tell the difference. I haven't caught anyone in the act so I can't say for sure. I know the neighbor two houses down has rats in the attic (according to my other neighbor) and we have seen one outside. Ugh, I'd hate for rats to be the case.

The squirrles do eat my avocadoes (but they leave plenty for me-I just cut off the eaten bits) but you see teeth marks so I assumed that I would see similar marks in the tomatoes instead with the large tomatoes I see round holes about the size of a nickel as the first signs and then more and more of the tomato up to half is eaten with the rest left on the vine.

Cyrus_gardener I'd be willing to share, I garden organically and don't expect perfect yeilds. But there is not one red cherry tomato left on the vine and as soon as any get a blush of color they are eaten. I should be getting reasonable yields this time of year... now I have no more tomatoes on the vines.

I'll post pictures if I get any more of the large ones ripening. Thanks for all the help.

Kristi

Crow taking a tomato.

Sometimes birds eat fruit because they're seeking the water. Put out a bird bath. Be very careful with bird netting and similar. It is a killer - of birds, reptiles etc.