How to make your own bird feeder

Here is a setp-by-step way to make a bird feeder using an old pine cone or half of an empty coconut shell. The recipe is taken from the RHS Wildlife Gardening book by Kate Bradbury, which I can heartily recommend. As a garden designer with a real passion for bringing wildlife into my own garden in Glasgow, as well as the gardens I design and create for clients, I am passionate about spreading the word when it comes to biodiversity-friendly wildlife gardens.

For this project, you will need bird seed, cooked rice, grated cheese, dried fruit, breadcrumbs, chopped nuts, some hard cooking fat, a pine cone or coconut shell, and some string.

Firstly mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl - the bird seed, grated cheese, dried fruit, breadcrumbs and chopped nuts. Add the hard cooking fat to this - the fat can be either lard or suet - and mix together with the dry ingredients. This bit can be hard work but is worthwhile! If you need to, heat the fat up to melt it a bit first.

Once you have a thoroughly mixed bowl of ingredients, paste it into your chosen feeder. If you’re using a pine cone then make sure you really get the mix deep inside, and if using the cocnut shell you can cram loads in!

Use your string to hang your feeder up where you can watch the birds feeding, or if you’ve used the coconut shell you could also empty the mix out like a cake onto a bird table.

For more major wildlife gardening projects, you might need a garden designer or landscape gardener, and for this you can get in touch with Tom at Tom Angel Studio, based in Glasgow.

To discuss garden design, soft landscaping or landscape consultancy, give Tom a call on 0141 432 1141 or email on tom@tomangel.co.uk