Sitting in your garden and watching the birds feed has got to be one of life’s great pleasures, but with the cost of birdfeed increasing, and the uncertainty as to what ‘fillers’ and preservatives might have been added, buying the food can be a costly addition to the monthly budget.
Here at Gift to Nature, we like to find a way around a problem, and we believe the solution here is to simply make your own. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a creative expert to make this one. A bit of time and some easy household ingredients will give you everything you need. Also with half-term approaching, this is another cost-effective idea to carry out with the kids (and less messy than baking) win, win.
What you need?
Ingredients:
- Seed mix (sunflower, safflower, golden millet or flax)
- Suet
- Dried Fruit
- Grated cheese (mild cheddar or similar)
- Peanuts
Extras:
- Yoghurt pots (or similar)
- String
- Bowl
- Scissors
4 Simple Steps
Cute a hole in the bottom of your yoghurt pot. Put the string through the pot (allowing enough extra to tie to your tree or pole etc.)
Warm suet up to room temperature, cut it up into small pieces and put it in to the bowl. Using your hands (it gets messy!), mix with all the other ingredients. Keep squeezing and moulding the until the fat melts enough to hold the mixture all together.
Once it is holding, spoon the mixture into your yogurt pot(s) and pop them into the fridge for at least a few hours (preferably overnight).
Now all that is left to do is tie your little pots to the tree and watch the birds feed, here on the Island you can expect to see:
- Blue Tit
- Robin
- Chaffinch
- Great Tit
- Long-tailed Tit
- Sparrow
- And more…
Feel free to get in touch if you have any other questions or interesting sightings and don’t forget to recycle your pots or indeed use them again.