Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag

We set up a bird feeder in the fall, the first thing I really did in the yard.  And we soon became the avian hot spot in the neighborhood.  I swear, I think we're the only yard in the neighborhood that has a bird feeder the way our yard is swarmed each day!  The pictures below don't even come close to showing all the birds at any one time, as there are probably another half dozen or so on the ground below!  

 

I've had a lot of fun watching the birds gobble up all the bird seed day in and day out.  And so has Scruffy, as we set up the bird feeder to be visible from the window near his seat on the back of the couch.  Watching and twitching himself silly, making sure those mean ol' birds don't swarm the house - our little guard kitten keeps us safe from the Winged Menace!

So, as I've enjoying watching them all, I've become interested in some other hanging seed set-ups.  There has to be a cheaper way to make those bird-seed bells, for example.  With a bit of online research (and yes, Pinterest helped), I came up with a few styles that I wanted to try.  The first one is printed here, and the others will follow when I give them a try.

First up: Peanut Butter Tubes

Nice and simple style, here.  Growing up, we used to make these using pine cones, but there don't seem to be many pine trees in this area of Texas.  It's more of a cedar area here.  Probably too dry for many pines?  Where I grew up, it's a big Loblolly Pine area - can't go 50 feet without running into more of them.  So, there were always plenty of pine cones about for such projects.  Here though, I had to look for a substitute structure.  After a little research, it seems that toilet paper tubes will do the trick!

What you need:

• Toilet paper tube(s)
• Bird seed
• Peanut butter
• String or twine or ribbon - i.e. something to hang it with

What you do:

1.     Use a knife to smear peanut butter around the tube.

2.     Cover the peanut butter with the bird seed.  You can do this by sprinkling bird seed over the tube, with a plate underneath to catch the excess; or by rolling the tube through a small pan of bird seed.  Depends on how you're working, and how big a mess you want to make :)  I have a whole bunch of little paint trays which are the perfect size to roll a toilet paper tube through, so I didn't sprinkle seed.  When we were kids, though, the bigger the mess, the better! 

3.     Once the tube is covered with bird seed, hang outside where your feathered friends can enjoy.  You can hang these by a string through the tubes, or by just sliding them on over a tree branch, if you have them available in your yard.  Our neighborhood is still pretty new, so no trees yet, at least not in our yard.  I hung our tubes using string passed through the tube.

Like I said, nice and simple!

 
 

Overall impression:  Nice and simple project.  Definitely kid-friendly, and supplies easy to come by.  The birds would probably like it better if I had trees to put the tubes over, as that'd probably be more stable than the hanging tubes.  Still, the tubes lasted very well, until all the seed had been enjoyed.  Even through a rainstorm that we had roll through, which surprised me!