DigitalVinyl said:

My staggered planting s of corn threw out tassels a few days ago and
the tassels are being eaten down to a strand. All the hanging pods are
missing.
snip

Is this something that afflicts corn? I assume with the tassels being
eaten by bees or some other bug my cobs are not going to get well
pollenated. The rest of the plants looks healthy. It seems to be
happening to every plant in the patch.

In the past I've had problems with house sparrows (AKA English sparrows)
eating the anthers in the tassels. And yes, this is an affliction, leading
to poor pollination of the ears.

I've been lucky (?) enough to see a large decline in house sparrow population,
so the past couple of years the tassels have been safe.

The birds tend to fold over or break the very top of the tassels.
--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)