Bird Feeders for Any Yard

The past few mornings I have woken up to birds singing outside my window. What a wonderful thing to hear! My daughter told me the other day it was the "bestest sound she was hearing!" With spring in full swing, and summer around the corner, this is just the beginning of this pleasant alarm clock.

Here are few ideas you can do with your kids to attract different birds to your yard.

This is an easy one for little hands! All you need is a pine cone, some bird seed and peanut butter. (If you do not have pine cone, a toilet paper roll will work also.) Check it out at Kaboose.

Another fun one is just using a hollowed out orange and filling with bird seed.

How Stuff Works, Suite 101 , and Buzzle have some great ideas for creating bird feeders!

Here is a great recipe to make Suet! Suet mainly attracts nuthatches, woodpeckers, wrens, titmice, creepers, kinglets, chickadees, thrashers, cardinals, as well as bluebirds.

Summer Suet
3 cups cornmeal
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
2/3 cup oil
3 1/2 cups soy milk
1 cup nuts
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper

Mix together the cornmeal, flour, and baking soda. Whisk in the oil
and soy milk. Stir in nuts and cayenne. Pour into an oiled 13x9x2"
pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Allow to cool. Cut
into 6 suet feeder sized pieces. Suet can be stored in a freezer.


Would you like some hummingbirds in your backyard? Here is an inexpensive way to attract them. Did you know that it does not need to be red!

Hummingbird Nectar

1 cup sugar
4 cups hot boiling water

Boil more than four (4) cups of water on the stove top. Use more than four (4) cups to adjust to the loss of water from steam. Carefully measure out four (4) cups of boiling water into a large bowl. Add one (1) cup of sugar. Mix the sugar and water together until all of the sugar is dissolved. Carefully place mixture into the refrigerator to cool, usually overnight.

Have fun attracting new birds to your backyard!

Your girlfriend,
Melinda