Feeding the Birds

One of the pleasures of feeding small birds is building the contraptions that deliver the food. The Diary has been making bird-feeders for years - for many, as a therapeutic occupation to take the mind off teaching - and continues to spend hours building these machines, some of which are total disasters. However, one or two are proving to work extremely well.

Peanut feeders are best made from a sheet of wire mesh which can be bought at most garden shops and cut to size. A simple and very effective design is to cut a rectangular sheet and simply fold it upon itself into a tube, pinching the base to prevent the peanuts falling out. The result is a feeder which is self-cleaning, and one which the larger and greedier birds, such as starlings, find difficult.

A similar design is to fold the wire to form three sides, and to nail this against a piece of wood. This design worked well until certain birds learned to steal the peanuts by entering from the top - a post here describes the unhappy result.

The problem with any design which includes wood is that, if the peanuts are held against it, as they are here, it tends to become unhygienic in prolonged wet weather.

Both these designs allow access for a wide range of small birds, including chaffinches which, around here, are numerous, noisy and unfriendly towards smaller birds. It took The Diary some years to work out a design aimed entirely at feeding the smallest birds.

Peanut feeder Mark 562A was made from a 8" piece of plastic drain tube, cut to an angle, and fitted with a small piece of wire mesh. The Diary is extremely proud of this and is considering taking out a worldwide patent. It is used by blue and great tits, siskins and goldfinches. Chaffinches tend to fall off, to everyone's amusement. And, by placing a bung in the top, the nuts are kept nice and dry.

The Diary is also extremely proud of this fat feeder, version 618C2, made from a tin of Fray Bentos Individual Steak and Kidney Pudding, available from all good supermarkets, and suspended with a piece of garden wire. This is great fun as it causes starlings immense frustration.

The contents is lard, melted and poured over a mixture of millet and sunflower kernels.

Care should, however, be taken to remove this machine when the warmer sun starts to appear in spring. The tin is painted dark blue, which absorbs sunlight. This may render the lard contents unstable and, therefore, liable to slide out and bury a small bird enjoying its meal in a sticky pile on the ground.