Edit: I revised the title of this post to reflect the expanded scope of this discussion

At a local charity bazaar last weekend my son and wife spotted this for $3 and bought it and said maybe I could use it in my figs.  While that may have just been an excuse for my son to buy it, I think they have something worth considering.  We have breezes here most of the time and it makes a fair amount of noise and flashes, etc.

 

Here is a video of a guy putting together a very good demonstration to make something somewhat similar.  The use of a jig for marking, etc. would speed up the process to make many of these.

It will be fun to watch it, but it probably won't help much on the birds.  I put a radio in one of my trees yesterday thinking the music would scare off the birds.  I came back in 10 minutes and 3 mockingbirds flew out of the tree.

Chapman, depends on the music!!   ;o)

Harvey, hard to tell.  Keep us posted on success or lack thereof,

Whirligig ... Great word... Nice to see others use it too.

My wife and I visited a 'u-pick' blueberry farm last summer and they had a number of loudspeakers mounted on poles and periodically they loudly blared forth bird sounds.  The owner, in response to my questions, said that these were recorded 'alarm' calls from various birds that were very effective in keeping the birds out of his couple acres of blueberries.  He did not do the recording, but had purchased the 'bird calls'.

Wonder where you purchase those, and the cost?

Ed, did it look like these units sold at Bird Gard? http://www.birdgard.com/

I am considering that product but want to make sure it is not too annoying for my neighbors who live about 500' away from my fig orchard.  I don't expect to have a sizable crop to market until 2015 or 2016 so, for now, I'm just looking at less expensive options to protect fruit for myself.

Falconers are also used by larger farm operations but cost $200-$300/day.

Different bird control options were discussed in this fairly in-depth article in Western Fruit Grower (and related publications): http://www.growingproduce.com/fruits-nuts/4-bird-control-products-you-should-be-considering/

Harvey - yes I think that the speakers mounted on poles looked like or similar to the green speakers shown on the "ProPlus" or "SuperPro" models.  If we go back there later this month, I will ask questions and take pics.  The owner seemed pretty proud of it and swore that it helped.  It was pretty loud, but they had no close neighbors.

Ed, I just spoke with a lady at Bird Gard.  I would probably get the ProPlus since it allows the card to be swapped out if I found I needed different calls and it also comes with two speakers which would be more effective for my orchard which is 552' long and only 80' wide (after adding two more rows).

One reason I've hesitated from this product is because of concerns over disturbing my neighbors but they do have a cherry orchard which would help buffer the sound from my system.  Also, Bird Gard has a satisfaction guarantee and I was told that if I wasn't happy with it because of neighbor complaints that I could return it.  The warranty on the unit is 1 year but, when asked, I was told the units typically last 10-15 years and they do make repairs to units.  They have some customers who have been using units for over 15 years and I was told that they do have fig growers as customers who have found them to be effective.

good information!

Okay, being the compulsive guy I am, I just ordered the Bird Gard ProPlus https://www.birdgard.com/product/Bird-Gard-Pro-Plus .  $438 shipped and should be more than sufficient for my 1 acre fig orchard (rated for up to 3 acres).  I had to guess some on which birds actually inflict damage so I may have to change the card if I see some species still around causing problems ($50 for another card).  If I find after a couple of weeks some birds that are still causing damage, they'll just ship me another card for free.

The system will run for about two weeks on one charge of a car battery so I didn't bother to get the solar charger.  I'll just schedule to charge the battery at night every 10 days or so.

Hope it does good for you.  Around here the rice farmers use the propane cannons to scare the blackbirds from eating the seed rice in the Spring.  The crawfish farmers use them to scare the geese out of their ponds.  They are very loud and wouldn't work well with close neighbors.

Those propane cannons are also used around here, sometimes even in cherries.  They covered large areas but some birds still seem to get used to it.

Today, just a few hours after taking this photo of my Martinenca Rimada, I discovered a bird had eaten half of the nearly ready fruit which I planned to pick tomorrow. :(

 

I did eat the other half and it was quite good but I'm going to have to do something about this.  This tree is planted near my house (not in the main orchard where I'll install the Bird Gard).

Do those owl statues work?  (For keeping away birds, I mean).

So far I stick to netting.  Partly because I like having songbirds near the house.  If I scare them away from the trees, I scare them away from the house too.

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

My Bird Gard Pro Plus arrived last week while I was on vacation.  My son and I installed it yesterday late in the day.  There were a large number of finch in the fig orchard at the time.  Although I don't have many fruits in the new orchard ripening yet, I've already lost quite a few fruits to birds and they seem to be hanging out to be first in line for the next ripe fig.  As soon as we turned it on, most of them flew away.  However, there were a few that remained around even after 15 minutes of the various calls (distress calls of my problem birds as well as raptor calls).  However, by late this morning, I only saw one flycatcher in the orchard and I'm fine with that.

I don't know how this would work in the environment of urban growers but the unit does have a volume control and the frequency of the calls is able to be adjusted.  I have the volume up all the way and I can't hear it from my house so far (may be able to hear it slightly when we don't have a breeze).  I somewhat like listening to the calls but imagine urban neighbors might have a different opinion. ;)  The company seems to be quite good and told me to let them know how it works out.  If I find I still have certain birds that are a problem over the next few weeks they will send me a different card with different calls free of charge.  As previously mentioned, I can also return it within a year for a full refund if I'm dissatisfied for any reason.

I saw these whirly gig things being sold at the Wild Bird Store the other day as something decorative to put in your garden. Birds were happily eating from the feeder less than a couple feet away.

Many of these devices will work in scaring birds for a while.  But birds seem to figure it out sooner or later and they come back.  Their drive for food is powerful.  
Bird netting seems to be the most effective.  You need to install carefully because they will find any holes in the netting.
  

pino, the Bird Gard has demonstrated to be very effective in commercial settings over long periods of time.  Bird netting is pretty prohibitive on a large scale (I estimated at least $10,000 for my one acre with a 10 year life span).  In severe drought situations where other food sources are absent, birds are less likely to be deterred but in my riparian area I don't expect the pressure to ever be so extreme since many other crops are unprotected.

I have seen a small home gardener falcon that guarded the bird garden with trees hazelnuts. The garden of 5 hectares.

Harvey
I agree that bird netting is expensive and labour intensive to put on.  I used bird gard for a few seasons and it did provide protection from some birds.   I changed the sounds regularly and dusk and dawn also shot off some cannons.  It did seem to depend on how much food was around for the birds.  Very difficult to keep them away from some grapes and cherries.

Dogs running around seem to help as well, I was gone for a few days on year while strawberries were ripening, they are behind a fence that the dogs can't get into, with dogs around I would only lose a couple, without dogs they were all gone.  Another idea is so put out cat food around the orchard and have cats roam around to keep the birds out, maybe make some sheltered areas so that the cats stick around when it's outside, I don't like cats myself but for mice, rats and birds they seem to work well as protection.

Chivas, sounds like you have some well trained dogs.
Mine would run off and wouldn't come back until they are hungry then they would sleep the rest of the day.

I saw plastic falcons at Home depot yesterday. Did anyone ever try them?
My birds know when a fig is ripe before I do. They always beat me to the first one.

The birdgard device is working pretty well but I'm having problems still with mocking birds.  I need to contact the company and maybe get a different sound card.  I Had listed mocking birds on my list of pests but lower down on the list so they didn't include a distress call for it on my card.

When I attended the pitahaya/pitaya/dragonfruit festival two weekends ago I saw that they had installed netting over the trial plantation since my last visit in 2011.  This photo doesn't show it very well, but gives an idea.  Research leader Ramiro Lobo said he believed it cost about $1,200 per acre which seems fairly reasonable to me, but this is the lighter weigh netting and might only last about 5 years.  There are wires running across 4x4s that are about 10'-12' high.  I might consider this for my figs, maybe also with a short wire fencing to keep 4-legged critters out.