It's for the birds!

Here is a very simple little project. I used to have some "real" bird feeders, but they were totally worn out and broken quite a while ago....

So, I decided to make one out of a 2 liter soda bottle I rescued from my son's house over the weekend. If you would like to do this, all you need is a plastic soda bottle, a wire coat hanger, a pencil, a little bit of tape, a paper punch (optional,) a knife and a pair of pliers that can cut wire.



First, I poked tiny holes in the bottom of the bottle to drain any rain that gets in there. Just above the ridge nearest the bottom of the bottle, I used a knife to cut two 4-inch horizontal cuts. Then I cut up from the middle of each one about 2 inches and folded the little triangles back into the feeder. You can see that in this picture:



Next, I lined the sharp edges with a bit of masking tape. I punched a hole under each opening and stuck a pencil all the way through to make perches for the birds.

Then I cut the straight bottom part of a wire coat hanger off, using the wire cutter tool on our pliers, and bent the hanger so the little curved parts could fit into two small slits I made near the top with a knife:



Then I filled the bottom with some mixed bird seed. Of course, you could use any kind you like, or even little crumbs and things from the kitchen.



By that time, I was on a roll, and so took a disposable aluminum pie pan, punched 3 holes in the rim, several tiny holes in the bottom and used some cotton twine to hang it and filled it with some of the sunflower seeds from our garden then hung it outside too.



Here you can see the whole assembly:



I did not make the suet holder, but I don't think it would be very hard to rig up something for this and there are recipes online to make your own suet cakes.



So, here is our very humble bird feeding station, all ready for winter!