Looking for something to do with the kids this weekend? With just a few items scored from your recycle bin and some basic ingredients you probably already have in the kitchen you can make any one of these 5 different bird feeders, in a snap. First, you will be keeping their little hands busy, then if all goes according to plan, their little minds too.
Give your neighborhood feathered friends some time to find your birdie buffet. Next add a set of binoculars, a birding field guide, and comfy place to sit by the window with a good view. Finally, let the birding begin.
1. Natural Bird Feeder by HGTV
2. Play Doh Lid Bird Feeders by Meet the Dubians (via Pinterest)
3. Bird Feeder Wreaths Mobile by weelife
4. Dried Cranberry-Orange Mobile by Casa Sugar
5. Toiletpaper Roll Bird Feeders by The Moffatt Girls
Also see our previous post: Turn Your Pumpkin Into A Bird Feeder
(Images: credited in above links)
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This post should really be titled "Dear Squirrels, think of my yard as your yard, make yourself comfortable, I even made you a snack"
these are all very cute though with a good intention behind them...
Bird watching is a wonderful activity for children. I will never forget what got my then four-year-old daughter became interested, an interest that is now a passion. We were vacationing in a house in Bodega Bay (famous as the town where Hitchcock's The Birds was filmed). One morning as I was scrambling eggs, she came running into the kitchen and said, "Mama, Mama, come quick. There's a big bird outside." Thinking that it was probably just a gull, I told her that I couldn't because I was cooking eggs, but she was insistent so I turned off the pan and went to the living room window with her. Just outside, no more than three feet from the house, was a great blue heron. It was taller than she was and beautiful. She started collecting anything to do with great blue herons and when she was about seven, her grandparents gave her binoculars and a field guide for Christmas. She is now an adult who is willing to jump in the car to chase a rare bird anywhere within a few days' driving distance.
I'm not as skilled as she is but I have learned quite a bit from her. She is a lister and has logged more than 100 species in our backyard alone. I especially love the time when our winter birds arrive from the far, far north. I think some of the same birds return to our yard each winter, as we've seen a partially albino junko with distinctive markings three years in a row.
KATHRYN1123, that's a beautiful, inspiring story. Thank you for sharing!
: )
jackie
Thank you, Jackie.
I sure wish I'd deleted the word "became" from the second sentence.
@ngall - so true - I really want to create this though. Maybe a loooooooooong string
I love these! What great ideas!!!
http://munchtalk.blogspot.com
Here in Australia we are discouraged from feeding wild birds bc it sets up a dependency that you cannot continue to fulfill.
Misseliotrope, I think birds are smarter than most people think. They'll eat from the easiest supply first but when that's exhausted, they move on to another supply. Here in northern California, I feed our winter birds. When they summer in, for example, the Arctic, they're on their own. Our Audubon Society and other birding organizations do not discourage feeding wild birds and many expert biologists I know do so.
I'm not familiar with habitat conditions or migrations in Australia so there may be good reasons to discourage feeding them there.
I was so excited to make one of these with my kids when I saw this (we get way too many oranges from our CSA), and then I read the first comment and realized that the squirrels (and raccoons) would ruin them. Boo.
Wouldn't the oranges MOLD pretty quickly? No?
I just ask because I know they see pretty quick to mold in my compost if not chopped/ buried/ whatever properly..
(I meant the ones the oranges with the middle removed, BTW.)
If you hang them from a branch on a longer string, I don't think the squirrels will be able to get to them. We have sock feeders hanging from branches and the squirrels don't touch them.
As for molding, them oranges will eventually mold but probably not before the birds have eaten everything they want. Then you can just make another one.
I live in a high rise, and we all have covered terraces. Of course we have the birds that make their rounds, but we also have a squirrel: just one. Somehow she has figured out how to access the second floor, and start her tour of the terraces. It's frickin' amazing to be 12 stories up when a squirrel drops by for a nut.
Great family project - we live in a neighborhood with lots of different types of birds!
I remember reading a warning at least 15 years ago against using peanut butter to hold birdseed because birds were being found dead, having their airways blocked by the peanut butter. I'm surprised it keeps being recommended.
I made some with apples recently. It would be a great project to do with kids: http://thismummaslife.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/apple-bird-feeders/