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Birdfeeder Blues

© Sharon Wren

When I started feeding the birds, I figured they'd shyly come to the feeder and have a snack and maybe someday they'd land on my finger, a la Snow White. Fat chance. If you read my first column for Suite 101, you learned that I have terrorist birds that think nothing of destroying their feeders. I've been trying to limp mine along as long as possible, but my two main feeders bit the dust recently.

The first one was the tube feeder, the one the little buggers keep pulling the perches out of. Every day I'd hunt down the perches, stick them back in and fill the feeder. Well, my husband beat me home from work the other day and decided to mow the lawn one last time for the season. You guessed it, he ran right over the perches. Unfortunately, they don't have any bird feeder parts stores, so the tube feeder went in the trash. A couple days later, the Rubbermaid feeder shaped like a little house suffered a near-fatal crash. Usually it hung from my shepherd's hook out back, on a piece of fishing line. Well, it gets mighty breezy here on the banks of the Mississippi (breezy? Try gale force winds!) and it apparently blew the feeder right off the hook. The walls were Plexiglas and that stuff tends to crack and break when it's dropped from a height of about 6 feet. I don't blame the birds for that one, but the squirrels are still suspects.

It was time to decide - keep spending good money on birdfeeders that they'll start trashing within weeks, or try to make my own? Please! Do you think someone with 5 years of back issues of Martha Stewart Living would just keep buying feeders? The fact that I don't ever remember a Martha article on making feeders means nothing. I haven't checked into making wooden feeders because frankly, I'm not sure my husband would share his toys, I mean tools, with me. I've seen feeders made from 2 liter bottles and I figured they'd be the easiest. It's amazing how easy something is...when you know what you're doing!

I decided to search the Internet. After all, if you can get the plans for a nuclear bomb online, you can get birdfeeder plans too, right? Wrong! I've poked through craft sites, search engines, I even Asked Jeeves and came up empty-handed. I still have hope that there are directions somewhere, but I'm running out of search ideas. The feeder doesn't have to use a 2-liter bottle; a milk jug would work just as well. Better, in fact. I have a toddler who blows through about 2 gallons a week. If you have ideas, feel free to send them to sawren@suite101.com. I need all the help I can get! And if I get some, I promise I'll pass them on.

The copyright of the article Birdfeeder Blues in Wildlife News is owned by Sharon Wren. Permission to republish Birdfeeder Blues in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.