Was losing more than half of my ripe figs to birds.  Not just one type of bird but Blue jays, Cardinals and Robins.  And they know when they are ripe.  You watch a particular fig as it ripens and say just one more day and the next morning it's gone.  Had to do something so I built this cage out of 1" PVC. Slide the 10' lengths of PVC over 1/2" rebar that I cut to 30" lengths and drove about 12" into the ground.  Covered with a 25' x 50' piece of netting that had 1" openings.  The front of the netting is weighed down with 2 lengths of the PVC so I just pick it up enter enter to do my picking.    Seems to be doing the trick.

 
 
   

What a great idea, I'm sure the birds don't think that.

How did you attach the net ?

I love that! It looks so much nicer and easier to work with than my setup - we just covered the trees directly and used zip ties.