Make your own bird feeder

Winter can be a tough time for birds. Food is in shorter supply and if an icy frost creeps over, it can harden nuts and berries and make it impossible to eat them. Birds can starve to death after three days if a frost or snow continues and many rely on bird feeders as their only source of food.

This is a super easy and fun way to make your own food for birds.

It is important to remember that if you start putting food out, you need to commit to it as birds start to become reliant on where their food source is.

How to make a pine cone bird feeder

What you need:

Pine cones

Butter/lard

Good quality bird seed.

Instructions

First you need to find some pine cones, which requires a nice little nature walk!

Pour some bird seed into a tray or pot.

If you intend to hang the pine cones tie some string around the bottom, if not you can leave this bit out.

Smear the lard into the crevices of the pine cone and roll the pine cones in the seeds so they stick.

Take out to your new bird feeders to your bird table or hang in the trees.

More Easy Bird Feeder Ideas

Rainy Day Mum has a great suet ball bird feeder idea.

Red Ted Art has lots of brilliant bird feeder crafts!

More Easy Science for Kids

If you’re interested in birds, find out why birds have different shaped beaks with this simple science investigation.

Find out one of the reasons plastic is bad for the environment with this easy decomposition experiment.