When we moved into our house I inherited a bird table which was fine except for the actual table which was rotten. I removed this and nailed a lid of a recycling box to some wood (old shelf found in the garage!) and then to the 'trunk' of the bird table. The lid of the recycling box has a lip all the way around, is easy to clean and has gaps for drainage on both ends. Perfect!
Here's a photo of my bird table with a rather bossy wood pidgeon claiming ownership!
Hi - what a great idea and you are lucky to have such a lovely leafy backdrop to your garden. It must help you draw in loads of birds.
CJ
cjbeady said: Hi - what a great idea and you are lucky to have such a lovely leafy backdrop to your garden. It must help you draw in loads of birds. CJ
Yes, we live on the edge of a village, right in the countryside, so it's lovely. I get all sorts of birds visit the bird table, including red legged partridges who even sit up there and sunbathe sometimes! I get gorgeous magpies, rooks and jackdaws, and we have three great spotted woodpeckers (two females and one male) who visit the peanut feeders. They pick out a peanut and then shuffle down the trunk of the bird table and jam the peanut into one of the splits in the wood which helps them to break it up before eating it!
I had a beautiful backdrop to my garden up to a fortnight ago when my neighbours decided to fell a lovely mature willow tree as 'it made too many leaves on the lawn in the Autumn'...... Very sad - It used to have Woodpeckers searching the bark for insects and Tawny Owl hooting from it on Winter nights - but no more....
CJ. That is such a shame. Have we no protection for trees in this country?
There is a mature beech in our garden. It sheds leaves on the newly seeded lawn, the leaves blow into the wildlife pond, it puts a large part of the garden in deep shade........and it is absolutely beautiful. It has been here a lot longer than we have and I hope it will continue to survive after we have gone. I have tried several times to capture the beauty of its foliage as the evening sun shines through, but have never really succeeded. We also have a holly tree with an amazing trunk. I have included a photo below.
Your photos are very amusing LLBagpuss, I think your birdtable looks great........obviously the pigeon agrees!
Kind regards Jane.
Fab bird-action shot Lisa.
Oh CJ how absolutely terrible. What a loss.
And Jef, how I empathise with your tree dilemma - I have a deciduous fir tree in the garden which drops its needles in the pond and looks really scabby and bare in the winter. But, the goldfinches love feeding on the seeds in its cones and a robin sings its heart out every evening right on the top branch - and I wouldn't have it cut down for a million pounds plus.
Pipit x