Emergency Barbecue Sauce Bottle Bird Feeder

BBQ bottle bird feeder - mounted

Our dark-eyed juncos are building a second nest this year in our creeping Charlie planter out on the catwalk.  They look exhausted and we've been talking about putting out a feeder for the birds. I dug around in the recycling and came up with an old barbecue sauce bottle.

I scrubbed it our and cut it as shown below with an Exacto knife and a pair of scissors.  It makes an L-shaped feeder when turned on its side. The remaining side of the bottle makes a shallow bowl/perch at the bottom.

To mount it, I drilled a hole in the cap and screwed it to the deck post.  Then, screwed the bottle on tight, twisting it around till the bottle was turned in the position shown. Then, all you have to do is pour a little seed in the tray part. I also put leftover greens, bread crumbs and such. The feeder is right outside the kitchen window, so I am constantly reminded to add goodies for the birds.

That's all there is to it. When the birds find it, I'll get some pictures of the feeder in use.

Cut the bottle along the lines shown. Don't forget to pour out the
barbecue sauce first, of course.

It took a while for my birdies to find the feeder. I put bird seed in it, bread crumbs and any other tasty-for-birds stuff. The feeder is outside my window and the birds visit all day long, especially when the wild fruit and seed supply gets low.  Here's one of my little visitors who came by this morning.

© 2014 by Tom King