It's a good thing mockingbirds sing.  It buys them a lot of slack when they eat my figs, strawberries and blueberries.  I have been using the stiff black bird netting and it works well.  I needed to get some more and I found another type of netting so I bought some.  It is more flexible, less expensive, easier to install and allows you to squeeze figs away from the edge without removing it.  Every year we have a couple of mockers that have about 4 chicks and they raise them in our yard.  The youngsters are exuberant.  I have seen them hurl themselves at the net 30 times before giving up.  If the bottom is not perfectly sealed they get in.  It would be ok if they would focus on one fig at a time, but naturally they like to peck at new ones and destroy way too many.  One day this summer I noticed one of them flopping around the bottom of the new net.  I could see he was in trouble and one of the others was jumping on him like, "What are you doing?  Stop it!"  I went out there and he was stuck in the net.  It was hard to believe but even though the holes are only 3/4 of an inch wide, his head was stuck in one and one of his wings was all the way through to his shoulder in another hole.  I picked him up and realized I needed scissors.  I go get them and come back and pick him up again, holding him face down.  Immediately, he starts yelling at me, as if saying, "Let me go!".  No amount of reassuring talk would get him to shut up.  I could feel his chest heaving he was breathing so hard.  I worked as quickly as I could cutting the net.  I needed to flip him over to cut the net on his front side.  When I did, I guess he assumed it was all over because he started to cry like a big baby.  No more Mr Tough Guy.  When I finally finished I opened my hand, expecting him to burst into freedom but he just laid there.  I began to wonder if he was hurt but after about 10 seconds, he finally figured it out and flew off.  The bird net?  Well, I guess I'll have to see if it is a bird hazard or not.  Here is a picture of it on my 2 year old Negronne.

Nice looking fig plant Tim. Tim, that green net looks better then the black netting they sell. Do you remember the name of the company that made the green net?

Are those openings diamond-shaped, or square?

Your mockers must be a lot more peaceable than ours, down here on the bayou because if I were to grab a baby mocker with the parents around, I'd be dive-bombed and pecked around the head and neck--No joke!

Many years ago, I had a fig tree I covered with a fabric netting.  It was limp and like nylon.  I saw a flash of red and when I looked more closely, saw that there was a female cardinal with her head caught in one of the openings of the netting.  The openings in the netting were not as small as the netting I have now.  I ran over to her and picked her up to remove the netting from her head and upper body and she proceded to bite the peawoddy out of me.  She clamped down on the webbing between my left thumb and forefinger and didn't let go!  I was bare-handed.  That's when I realized that she didn't know I was trying to help her and that ended my "Lassie Syndrome" forever after.  I put on canvas garden gloves and picked her back up, whereupon she proceded to clamp down in the same place on my hand right through the glove!  It still hurt!

I finally got her untangled from the netting and she flew away, feathers in a rumple.  Cardinals have those wedge-shaped shell-cracking beaks.  She almost bit a divot out of the webbinb of my hand--I was bleeding.

Something I learned when we had an exotics vet working with us--Birds don't have diaphragms like animals do.  They breathe with their whole rib cages, so it will kill them if you clamp your hand around their bodies and hold them tightly.  They can't breathe.  You can clamp your thumb and forefinger around their necks and hold onto them that way.  Even if they struggle, they won't break their necks, as their necks are very flexible.  A regular washcloth, put over the bird's head and neck, between your hand and the bird's neck will protect you.

This is just general infor for people.  Tim, it doesn't seem that you were stifling the breathing of the bird if it was hollering the whole time, it must have been able to breathe all right.

Question--What does this mean?  "It allows you to squeeze figs away from the edge without removing it." 
 
That really is a beautiful fig tree.
 
Thanks,

noss 

Bob, I got the netting from Seven Springs Farm.
noss,  The netting is softer so you can push it in and reach figs farther inside the bush to feel them.

Aha.  Thanks.  I hadn't a clue.

noss