Peach tree cocooning

I just took off the last experimental 'cocoon' from our peach tree, I thought I'd report on its success rate.  If gardening chatter bores you, you may want to move on. ;-)

A couple of months ago, as a more bird-friendly alternative to netting, I wrapped two heavily-laden branches of my peach tree in 'row-cover' material, a white, translucent soft fabric, as a sort of 2ft x 4ft cocoon to discourage squirrels and birds from eating my peaches before I could get to them.  My end-of-season conclusions: 

- Squirrels are smarter than they look. :-)  The beggars snuck in the top of one of the cocoons that was tied too loosely, and made a highway of it.
- I think it's the brightening of color on the fruit that attracts them to come eat; I could have put the cocoons on a bit later, when the red was first showing up rather than when they were still green.
- The bird discouragement was mostly successful, with the exception of one enterprising bird (a jay, I'm guessing?) who pecked his way through the cover early on in the season and had a feast on one fruit whose red was easy to see through the material.
- The cocoons probably help to keep out insects, too, somewhat. (e.g. those attracted to nibbled fruit)
- I did a couple of experiments covering small groups elsewhere on the tree from sight from above, but apparently squirrels spotted them from below just fine. :-P
- Keeping the bottoms of the cocoons tied up both keeps critters from jumping up from below and makes a nice catcher for fallen fruit; I felt like I was gathering eggs each morning!
- Damaged fruit decays quickly and attracts bugs; I found it wise to cut it up the same day I brought it in, including peeling it, putting it in some tupperware and popping it into the fridge.  It made a nice breakfast or dessert for the next few days.  I believe peaches tend to get a grainy texture if you store them in the fridge for too long, but this short-term method seemed to work just fine.
- The leaves didn't seem to take any damage from being covered for so long; enough light seemed to get in to keep them healthy.

All in all, IMHO it's worth doing again next year.