I don't even have my first ripe fig (ever) yet and have already shooed a stoopid bird off my donated Sal's fig tree this afternoon. Seriously, I was totally incensed over the whole ordeal.

Sirlampsalot gave me a Sal's Corleone about 2 weeks ago and it had baby figlets (5-6) on it. I never dreamed that they would come to fruition! Until about 2 days ago I noticed a really small figlet turning color. Well I'llbedamned, it started to ripen! I ogled it this morning and it looked like it needed another day or two. And then this afternoon, I have to beat a bird off my baby tree! The nerve! I'm gonna pluck that sucker in the morning and have a taste. It's tiny so I don't know if it's worth posting pics, but I'm elated that I even have one to "harvest" this year!

<---does a small happy dance.

See HERE for dealing with birds.

Thank you Jon! I actually breezed right by the bird netting this morning at Lowes because I was certain that I wouldn't need something like that for another year or two. :)

I got lucky this morning and beat the bird to my fig! It was perfectly ripened too. Sirlamps told me that if you pick a fig an it oozes that milky latex stuff from the stem, that it's not fully ripe. I didn't know that! And this fig didn't ooze. Woot! It was a beautiful red inside and surprisingly sweet! I'm happy.

Here's the fig in question. I don't really think it warranted bird netting. Maybe next year. I did take pics of the cut fig but didn't have my macro on an they turned out fuzzy. :(

Or you could try 'bagging' them, which seemed to work for me in resolving my wasp attack problem. But I suspect the paper idea might be better, coz it allows for better 'ventilation'.

Thats a nice picture regardless.

Sophie...I have had trouble with birds in the past, but this year I tried those Organza gift bags (4"x6") and they work great...just place one over the ripening fig and pull the draw strings...for some reason the birds do not want to deal with those bags...not one bird peck on any of my ripe figs this season(including light and dark figs)...if you have a huge tree with a hundred figs all ripening at the same time it's probably not going to be practical to bag every fig, but for situations like most of us deal with, where we have smaller trees with maybe a dozen or so figs on the tree, they work great...and on most trees the figs don't all ripen at the same time, so if you bought a pack of 50 bags (about 5 or 6 dollars) you can pretty much keep up with the ripening cycle on most of your trees...good luck. 

That sounds like a slightly easier version of my method. I use those bags you get at the supermarket for putting in fruit/veg. They have long 'ears', so are easy to tie around the branch after pulling it over the fig. Or you can cut out a U section in the top middle of any small bag to make similarly long handles for easy tieing. 

well, sophie, you know my method, and it's lots easier than all those other methods. get a guard snake!

Quick fix, put a couple pinwheels around it, that should give you temporary relief, maybe enough to get those figs ripened