Pete,
It is my belief that "being offended" is absurd. Everyone has a right to their opinion, beliefs, weird behavior etc etc. Screaming that "I am offended" is one persons way to get other people to squelch their words or behaviors. I call BS, if someone is offended it is their problem, they chose to be offended. Let everyone be themselves and if we don't like it, we can walk away or ignore or whatever we do.
I happen to love your posts so please don't ever apologize for them.

I am confused on a point here. Many talk about shooting the birds with a shot gun as a method of protecting the figs. But does it work? I have never tired it at my California residence, because I would have to have someone bring me the figs in jail.

If I could do it, I can't imagine this even being practical at my place because there are so many birds, I would have to camp outside all day and do nothing else but hunt. If I ever left the house a new crop of reinforcements would come in. So is shooting them really effective time wise? Just curious.

Likewise most cities and even some counties have laws that strictly forbid the shooting of any native songbird. I'm not sure what I will do when I retire and actually have time to do something about it. I would like to think that I am cramming every square inch of my edible jungle with enough fruit that I will not miss the part they eat. That maybe if some of my fruit is in the higher branches where I can not easily get to them, that would be the wildlifes share. Perhaps my presence along with my yard cats and dogs woud deter enough predation that it is acceptable losses. I just don't know at this point but Fried Rabbit and Squirrel stew sounds pretty good and maybe I can sell the trapped opossums to help buy fertilizer. The birds though I just don't have an answer for them however I have seen where some Asian cultures fry the little birds and eat them whole bones and all. Stir fry Sparrow anyone?

Soni,

If you look at the reviews on Amazon it has twice as many 1 star reviews as 5 star..not a good sign.   

WillsC,

The product worked for me. I read the reviews on Amazon. Here are some of the reasons it might work for some and not others.

1) I have a more upscale model with two speakers

2) It may work better in certain locations with certain types of birds. It may not be effective in all situations.

3) I identified both my predator birds and birds that were eating the figs and then made sure I had the right chip and program by working with the company.

The only negatives I see with the product is that you will not get 100% control of the problem but it improved by a substantial amount. ( More figs than we can eat vs. not having very much)

Also the noise could annoy neighbors. We reduced this risk by adjusting the volume, setting it so it only runs during the day, and only using it during fig picking season.

The only other negative that I can think of is that if its in the field it requires a car battery to keep it going. I used a deep cycle battery that had to be charged once or twice during the season.

 It may take a little tweaking that some people dont want to try..  The concept is worth the try.   We knew a family that recorded a mockingbird that kept them awake at night and played the tape back to him 2 nights.   The 3rd night he modified the shape of his territory to exclude the tree by their bedroom LOL.     Birds do respond to other birds vocalizations.  That's why this Bird Gard interests me.  

  Soni