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Holiday Decorating For The Birds

© Terrie Murray

Christmas trees, wreaths and hanging baskets can also make great cover, and many backyard birdwatchers utilize them. Decorate living outside trees with edible berries or dried fruit slices strung on heavy string, suet cakes molded into small balls, or pine cones spread with peanut butter and rolled in birdseed. If you don't have any outdoor trees, this can be duplicated with your "used" indoor Christmas tree, set up outdoors for a second life after the holidays:

Louise Grider, a wildlife rehabilitator and artist in southern Alabama, goes for decorating for the birds in a big way. Here's how she describes last year's tree:

"I always decorate a tree for wildlife. Last year I made dozens of seed bells, and they were a great success. This was a project for the grandkids, Mother and me to do, and it was lots of fun. The kids and I bought the thickest, prickliest scotch pine we could find when they went on sale the day after Thanksgiving. We set it up on the edge of the woods in the back yard, where it would stay all winter. It made good shelter and hiding place for the little guys who came to eat and sleep. We asked WalMart for any stale bagels and got a whole bunch, for free. I bought a big jar of the cheapest crunchy peanut butter I could find. I bought a 25 pound of birdseed, a big bag of the fruit and nut mix, a big bag of sunflower hearts, a couple of bags of cheap apples, and we were ready to go! I did tweak the bell recipe a bit. I think it called for using the little terra cotta herb pots lined with foil to make bells, and a much cheaper, easier way is to use the bathroom size paper cups. Be sure to get paper, not plastic. When the mix is set, you can just peel off the cup and you don't have to worry about the foil.

"I did do some of the prep work ahead of time, so Mother and the kids could just dive into the actual making of the decorations. The bagel wreaths were made by spreading bagel halves with peanut butter and dipping them into biscuit trays filled with birdseed. Tie a red or white piece of yarn (no longer than 4 or 5 inches) through the hole to hang it on the tree. I used medium-heavy craft wire to stick through the paper cups to hang the bells. The loop on the bottom of the bell (where the clapper would be) is important, because it keeps the wire from pulling out of the bell. Squirrels will carry the whole thing off, if the wire is not securely wrapped around a branch. We pulled the yarn through the apples with a bodkin, but you could also do it with a real long big head nail. This piece of yarn was a little longer than I like to have out for birds, but nothing got tangled in it, as the deer and raccoons and possums ate the apples pretty quickly! They also loved the bagels. We put red weatherproof bows on the tree to finish it off, and it was really pretty."