How to Construct a Bird Feeding Station
A bird feeding station is an area of your yard designated and set up to accommodate wild birds. This is a great way to connect your kids to nature up close and personal, and perhaps foster a lifelong interest in bird watching. Your bird feeding station doesn't have to be fancy or cost lots of money. The birds aren't interested in high-tech gadgets or elegant dining. They just need help getting food during the winter months when resources are slim or nonexistent. All you and the kids need to do is offer the four basic types of preferred feeding choices . Provide ground-level, tabletop, hanging and tree-trunk feeding opportunities to attract the widest variety of wild birds to your feeding station. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Aluminum pie pan
- Wild birdseed
- Small scrap of lumber
- Empty plastic milk jug
- Plastic garbage can
- Rope
- Plastic finch tube
- Black Nyjer thistle seeds
- Fishing line
- Pine cone
- Honey
- Wire suet feeder
- Suet cake
- Peanut butter
- Raw beef suet
- Small plastic tub
- Whole dry corn
- Bird field guide book
- Small binoculars
Instructions
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1
Choose a location for your bird feeding station where you can see it easily from a window in a comfortable room of your home. Situate it within 100 feet of trees and shrubs to provide your visitors with places to hide from predators. Don't set the station up too close to the cover, or cats will hide in the cover to hunt the birds.
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2
Poke some small drainage holes in the bottom of an aluminum pie pan. Add wild birdseed and place it on the ground or on a small scrap of lumber for ground-level feeders such as quail, mourning doves, sparrows, juncos, pheasants and towhees.
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3
Cut a 2-inch-wide strip out of one side of an empty plastic half-gallon milk jug to make a wide tabletop feeder. Leave a lip all the way around the opening so that the seeds won't fall out. Pour some birdseed into the feeder. Flip a plastic garbage can upside down in the feeding station area and set the wide feeder on top of it. This level is attractive to cardinals, jays, chickadees, grosbeaks, wrens and titmice.
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4
Hang a rope between two trees to create a hanging feeder area. Suspend a plastic finch tube feeder from the rope and fill it with black Nyjer thistle seed to attract finches. Tie a piece of fishing line to the stem of a pine cone. Paint the pine cone with honey and roll it in wild birdseed. Hang it from the rope for the enjoyment of many wild bird species.
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5
Hang a wire suet feeder filled with a suet cake from a tree trunk for woodpeckers, chickadees, jays, brown creepers and titmice. Smear some peanut butter into the bark as well. Many wild birds adore peanut butter. Nail a chunk of raw beef suet to a tree trunk.
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6
Place a shallow container with about an inch of clean water out each morning.
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7
Set a small plastic tub 10 to 15 feet away from your bird feeding station. Keep it stocked with whole dry corn. This will offer squirrels one of their favorite treats in an easily accessible location. This ploy often keeps them out of nearby bird feeders, particularly if the bird food is challenging for the squirrels to reach.
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Refill your feeders every day.
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Tips & Warnings
Help the kids make plastic drink bottle feeders for the hanging section of the feeding station.
Keep a bird field guide book and a small pair of binoculars near the window that your kids will be watching your bird feeding station from. Encourage them to keep a journal to record the species of birds that visit your station.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Pixland/Getty Images
