Activities & Days Out / 20 February, 2023 / Nanny Anita

Recycled Bird Feeder

As the advert for the RSPB says, “Let’s make a Home For Nature”, we decided to spend part of our Sunday making a recycled bird feeder.

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Before we set about making our recycled bird feeder I did some research on what is the best food to give wild birds.  I had seen some really beautiful ideas that people had made, but I wasn’t sure if feeding wild birds peanut butter or gelatine would be good for them.  Turns out it is absolutely fine for them to eat those things.  We then had to considered what would be good to put in our bird feeder without encourage rats into the garden (this is Central London after all).  The peanut butter idea went out the window, as did any idea of fruit.  Therefore we went with seeds, but which ones would be best.  This website http://birding.about.com/od/birdfeeders/tp/winterfoods.htm had some brilliant suggestions about what to feed birds during the different seasons.  One thing it did say, which I found very interesting, is that if you are going to use bread/crackers etc do it in very small doses.  They have no really nutritional value for them or ducks!

With our knowledge in hand it was time to build our feeder.

To make your own feeder you will need:

• A container e.g. milk or juice bottle
• Something to decorate it with – we used duck tape.
• Twine
• Scissors

1. Using a craft knife I cut a hole into the side of our plastic milk bottle and then using some duck tape I folded it over the sharp edges so that it would be more comfortable for the birds to stand on.

2. The little ones then added strips of duck tape to the outside of the container, until it was all covered.  They were so absorbed in what they were doing that I could barely keep up with their demand for more strips of duck tape.

3. We then filled it with millet, shelled sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.

4. Finally we found a branch out in the garden to hang it on.

I would say that the activity was a success. When I dropped my youngest charge off at nursery this morning she was so excited to tell her teachers what we had made.

This activity may help development of:

Understanding about nature

Making observations of animals

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