the saddest sunflower

Growing sunflowers. How hard can it be? We try and try each year but the odds are stacked against us. The price we pay for plenty of wildlife in the garden.

This year the deer have kept away but chipmunks decided to nibble the stalks at the base just enough for the plants to fall over wounded but not enough to kill them. Why do the do that? Now it looks like earwigs and leaf cutting bees have moved in on the only flowering specimen. One day maybe ....