With the arrival of winter, which is demanding for free-living game and especially for small birds, the time has come for a small project to support them. Small wild birds such as tits, bullfinches, linnets, and other finches will benefit from a feeder offering dry, nutritious food throughout the winter frosts. A wild bird feeder is a perfect choice for anyone wanting to help the birds in their garden or on their balcony.
Thanks to its multiple feeding openings and a catching tray that replaces a perch, it offers space for several birds to feed at once. You can relax and enjoy the variety of bird species in your garden.
Most feeders are open on multiple sides, allowing the feed mixture to get wet or be covered by snow. The goal of this homemade feeder was to keep the seed mix dry even in unfavorable weather conditions.
For its construction, I used material, which would otherwise be waste. A leftover piece of 10cm diameter aluminum chimney pipe, a round plant pot saucer, a threaded rod, M8 metal nuts and M3 screws, M3 plastic nuts, washers, a threaded metal eye, and a few plastic parts which I printed on a 3D printer.
By unscrewing the threaded hanging eye, the roof can be slid off the threaded rod to fill the pipe with feed. I cut three holes in the bottom part of the pipe, through which the feed is dispensed by gravity as the birds peck at it.
I was tempted to cut windows to see the amount of feed remaining in the feeder, but I decided against it because I thought the birds might try to peck at a seed through the transparent window. If the window were made of plastic, they would probably peck through it in a short time, if I made it from a hard material, they could get injured. So, I instead made the oval holes in the bottom section higher up, making it easy to see when the feeder is almost empty.
"I'm delighted it's so busy every day!"