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Feeding Birds - An Update

© Sharon Wren

Well, here we are, in the 2nd week of January. Politicians like to do State of the Union, or State or City speeches so I'm doing the State of The Birdfeeders. Remember the feeder I made from the 2 liter pop bottle? Well, it bit the dust the other day. Seems that the squirrels didn't take kindly to not having their daily handout, I mean feeding, and they took it out on the pop bottle feeder. (We were at my in-laws' all day.) I knew something was up when I looked outside and the feeder was empty. They ripped out almost one entire side of the bottle, ate one of the shish kebob skewers and dumped out all the seed. Do I have squirrels or the Wildlife Mafia around here?

The Rubbermaid feeder is pretty much a goner. Being frozen to the ground for over a month, plus being half buried under the snow didn't help and the Wildlife Mafia has been ripping out what remains of the feeder to get at the sunflower seeds. I may be able to salvage it this spring though, after the snow melts.

It's not all bad news though. The Mickey Mouse feeder outside Logan's window is holding up very well and hasn't even faded in the sun. Hooray for the mouse! I finally figured out how to fix the plastic seed holder on the metal cage-type feeder that my mother-in-law gave me, the one that the birds pecked to pieces. I cut a piece of plastic coated paper from the cover of an AOL CD-Rom, fit it inside the feeder and wrapped the bottom in electrical tape. It's not pretty, but who cares? The birds don't care, I don't care and I doubt seriously Martha Stewart will be dropping by anytime soon to critique my birdfeeders. If she did stop by, it'd take her at least a month to finish critiquing just my house!

Speaking of our girl Martha, she recently did her newspaper column on making birdfeeders. These aren't humble pop bottle feeders, but really cool ones. Alas, I didn't include the date it appeared when I cut it out of the paper, but it was back in December and was probably also in her magazine at some point. The birdseed wreath looks neat and isn't hard. You get some bundles of red amaranth, sorghum, broomcorn, white popping corn, proso millet or foxtail millet, and attach them to a wire wreath form with 12 gauge floral wire. You could find the wire and wreath form from a craft store, but I don't know where you'd find the rest of the stuff. Maybe at a nursery or florist. Or if you're ambitious (or crazy, like I am), you could grow them yourself. Martha suggests buying them from Pipestem Creek, which is a company that makes great looking edible wreaths. If you're interested, go to the weblinks section here and you'll see the address.

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