Bird Table
The classic bird table is a simple, flat board mounted one post. It is actually available in a wide variety of forms, from very simple to rustic (and sometimes quite awful)—but the birds have no eye for what may please you and their requirements are very simple. Whether you buy already-made table or make one yourself, following the basic instructions given here, is really up to you. Incidentally, there is no reason why a plastic table should not do just as well as a more traditional wooden one.
Ideally, a bird table should sit securely on a firm post approximately 1.5 m (5 ft) above the ground, not too far from cover, but out of the jumping range (from walls and trees) of cats and grey squirrels. It should have a roof to keep the food fairly dry (the roof can also incorporate afoot hopper) and should have a low surrounding rim to avoid too much spillage of food on to the ground below. Gaps in the rim or holes bored in the table itself will assist draining off rainwater. It is also possible to place bird tables on walls or window-ledges by using metal or wooden brackets, or to hang them up by cords or chains.
Nuts can be strung from the sides and nut baskets other feeding devices can be suspended from them.
Purpose-built metal or plastic nut and scrap baskets come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are available quite cheaply from many sources. Many shops now sellouts repacked in inexpensive sausage-shaped bags and these have proved highly popular and very successful. They have the advantage that they can be hung almost anywhere. There is now an enormous range of garden bird equipment available, including food hoppers, tit-bells, windowsill trays and so on, some of them incorporating several features at once and others with covered feeding areas accessible only to tits.
You can, of course, make your own feeding devices. Atilt bell—which is basically some sort of inverted container for fat-based bird cake and the like—can be made from half a coconut shell, an empty yoghurt container or even an old jam-jar. Other jars of various sizes can be mounted or suspended horizontally and will provide excellent feeders which keep the food dry and all in one place. You can also create sheltered ground feeding stations by using simple screens which will not only protect the food you put down, but also give some protection from predators.
Some garden birds, like wrens, do not come very readily to feeders and although they may comet food on the ground they really prefer to feed undercover and in thick vegetation. Heavy snow cover greatly reduces their options, so be prepared to clear snow away for them and open up areas of undergrowth and hedge bottoms for them. Small supplies of minced meat scraps, fat, cheese and ‘ants’ eggs’ can also be useful.