...and what's it doing there?

Interesting psychological test.

Looks like a plastic Easter egg that some kid put a note in, attached it to a
balloon and sent it aloft, hoping for a reply.  It landed in your yard, you painted
it black, threw the note away, hung it in your tree to deceive us, you devil you.  Poor kid, will be wondering what happened to his egg for the next 20
years.  LOL

Is it some sort of bug or critter deterrent ?

Either way i hope your figs are dark like that and not light type !

a radio? - for sound to keep birds away.

edit: Or a super collosal olive.

a really ripe black fig with the ability to hover in open air.

A bird decoy. Like folks do with red beads in cherries. The birds get tired of checking it out and then don't seem to notice when the fruit ripens to the same color

Clearly is is an attempt to fool Martin into thinking that variety is a dark fig.

You're harvesting the technology of the Mexican Jumping bean???

Martian space pod looking for cuttings of something other than Brown Turkey.

A giant licorice jelly bean?

Frank,
Did it work? It has not yet worked for me. I tried the Easter eggs (red, yellow, purple) as well as Christmas ornaments (mahogany, burgundy, flat gold, deep purple) of different sizes. The mocking birds still attack and now they peck through the newspaper until it - newspaper or fig - falls off.

Strudeldog wins.
It is supposed to produce the opposite effect of Pavlov's results. It is supposed to condition and inure birds to pecking at black fig-like objects.

In reality, I am providing a fun diversion for my birds. They just love pecking and playing with the plastic easter eggs, knocking them to the ground and watching a grown man shout expletives to the sky, while putting them back on the tree. It gives my birds something to do while waiting for those sweet, juicy black figs to ripen. Aren't I a nice guy? Surely, PETA should be giving me some type of award.

You need to wrap some of the eggs in newspaper JD ;)

The reflection kind of resembles a goat staring at the egg ;)

Should wrap a few bird eggs in newspaper.

I could've sworn it was a bird egg. More specifically, the egg of a Maltese Falcon!

ET. [and not to be confused with the BT!]

Didn't know eggplants climbed trees, but do they?  Never grew one, but looks like an eggplant... except for the strings......... :-))

Suzi

Great idea, now paint it all over with Tanglefoot and the birds will never touch it again! You'll just catch a lot of bugs instead!

Put a peck detector in it and wire it to micro sprinklers strategically placed to spray the bird when he pecks it. Then video it and share!

I have the orneriest, most mean-spirited, psychotic birds anywhere in the USA!
Look what they did to my fig decoy just to drive the point home that they can do what the hell they please and I can't say boo.

I double draped bird netting over one of my Atreanos that was beginning to ripen. The next day, the netting was pulled completely off the tree. What's worse, they didn't even bother pecking at any of the figs essentially telling me that netting or no netting, they will eat my figs when they are good and ready and I have nothing to say on the matter.

Them some mean birds.

FMD, are you sure you are dealing with parrots?