A bird feeder that you and your child made with your own hands will bring great pleasure. This is both a good tradition, teaching a child to take care of our little brothers, and a wonderful creative activity.
Milk cartons and plastic bottles are not the best option for a feeder. We bring to your attention eco-feeders that are easy and interesting to make.
As a “construction” material you will need: cardboard and ribbons (trimming, narrow satin ribbon or just rope).
Food: seeds and grains (millet, sunflower seeds, oat flakes, wheat and any other), crushed peas, berries (frozen cranberries, currants, rowan, viburnum are excellent), raisins, grated cheese, etc. It is not recommended to use rice or buckwheat: After entering the bird's stomach, they swell and cause pain to the birds.
You will also need flour and a container for preparing flour paste.
Place food on the table in flat containers. For convenience, it is better to cover the table with a napkin, paper, oilcloth, because... In the process of preparing the feeder, cereals and flakes crumble and fly in different directions. Make blanks of ribbon-ropes about 50 cm long (to prevent the ribbons from unraveling, you can carefully burn the ends over the fire).
We prepare a cardboard base: any figures (hearts, flowers, fish, etc.) no more than 10 cm high with a hole for a ribbon, for which you will then hang the eco-feeder on a tree. Instead of cardboard, you can use bread (it’s more difficult to cut out something unusual, but the feeder will be 100 percent environmentally friendly).
Now we prepare the flour paste. Pour the flour into a small container, add cold water and mix thoroughly until the sour cream thickens (in this order and only with cold water, otherwise you won’t get a homogeneous mass). Then put it on the fire and cook, stirring constantly, for some time. Control the thickness of the mixture (it should retain the consistency of sour cream): it will thicken over the heat.
Let's move on to the process of making an eco-feeder. Apply flour paste to the cardboard figure, leaving the holes for the ribbons free. The layer should be thick enough so that the grains and flakes sink slightly into it.
We pour the food itself onto this base, pressing it a little with our fingers. It all depends on the imagination of you and your child: different parts of the figure can be laid out with food of different colors, a pattern can be laid out, etc.
The figure should not be turned over immediately. You need to let it dry for about 20 minutes. After that, apply the paste to the back side and lay out the pattern. Now the workpiece should dry well until the paste hardens.
All that remains is to thread ribbons or strings into the holes and the eco-feeder is ready!
