Feed the birds. If you can.

15 January 2008

Inspired by Soulemama’s popcorn and cranberry garlands for the birds, I decided to make my own offerings for the birds. I found a bag of cranberries at the supermarket and set to devising pretty wired feeders, which small birds could both perch and feed upon. I mixed up lard and bird seed together with a little chopped cranberry and dried fruit, which I then pressed into fir cones that I had wired to be hung on branches. Then my various ingenious feeders were hung around the garden, just waiting to be devoured by the birds.

They waited. And waited. But the birds were having none of it. A blackbird managed to pull a few currants off one of the wires, but wasn’t interested in anything else. The clever cranberry bells were of no interest to sparrows and blue tits. What did I need to do, provide instructions?

They understood the handful of little fat balls though and they were soon emptied. Leaving just the fruit to hang forlornly in the trees, shrivelling up. Until I collected it up at the weekend to make more fat balls. If the birds wanted fat balls, they were going to get fat balls. But bugger me if they weren’t going to get fat balls made with all that fruit.

I chopped up the apple, mashed up the squishy cranberries, stirred it all into a bowl of bird seed and then added melted lard to stick it all together. Melted lard stinks – but then I suppose rendered fat from the belly of a pig isn’t too likely to smell all that great – and because the only way to make these fat balls is with your hands, I then stank too. Damn those birds.

I packed the mixture into and around the wired fir cones and, after giving them a little while in the fridge to harden, I hung them up around the garden. At which point it started to rain heavily on me. I’m staying indoors from now on. The natural world can damn well fend for itself.

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One Response to “Feed the birds. If you can.”

dreamdust » Feed the birds II: The return of the lard
9th December 2008 @ 12:50 pm

[...] learned my lesson earlier in the year that birds would ignore any pretty arrangements of wired fruit I made for them. The birds in our garden are more of the fatty food-loving variety. Bring on the [...]