It’s March which means it is officially Spring Time!
On Activity Quest we celebrated the start of Spring by listening to bird song and making our own bird feeder.
You can listen to the episode here:
Even though it is officially Spring it is still quite cold . When it is cold birds need high energy,
high-fat food. This is because any extra fat helps the birds stay warm and means that they can use their body fat if they struggle to find food to survive.
One of the ingredients we’re using to make our bird feeder is peanut butter because it is really high in fat. If you don’t want to use peanut butter or have an allergy you can also use lard – although it’s not as nice with jam on toast if you want a post activity making snack!
What You Need:
- An empty tube – this could be the middle of a kitchen roll or a 20 cm section cut from a wrapping paper tube
- Bird seed
- Peanut butter (or lard)
- 2 lolly sticks
- String
- Scissors
- A tray or plate
- A spoon.
Because this activity requires the use of scissors make sure you have a responsible adult to assist you.
Instructions
- Take the empty tube and carefully cut 2 pairs of slits in the tube. You want to slits to be big enough to poke through the lolly sticks. Make sure the lolly sticks lie flat when the roll is standing up – these are going to be where the birds can perch when nibbling at their feeder so we want them to be able to stand on them without falling off.
- Get a spoon of peanut butter and slather the tube in peanut butter until there is a layer all over the tube! If you’re finding the peanut butter is too stiff try using a spoon that’s been dipped in hot water or warm up the peanut butter in the microwave for a few seconds to make it more spreadable. Be careful to not make it too runny though.
- Once the tube is covered in peanut butter pour some bird seed into a tray or on a plate and roll the tube in the seed so it sticks to all the peanut butter.
- Now you can put your bird feeder somewhere for birds to eat from. You might want to add some string and hang it from a tree.
- Watch birds and even squirrels come and eat from your bird feeder
If you’re able to regularly feed birds then you will notice they are very smart and they will come back to check for food.
If you’ve not got birdseed or peanut butter you can still feed the birds with certain leftovers you might normally throw away. Peas and sweetcorn, plain cooked pasta and rice and fruit can all be fed to birds as can leftover mashed potato!
Chopped, cooked eggs are very healthy for birds, you can even crush egg shells which contain lots of calcium for nesting birds, plus the grit helps their digestion.
Let us know if any birds come to your garden to try your peanut butter bird feeder – and remember you can find all the instructions to make your own bird feeder on the Fun Kids website.