Birds have busy days, don’t they?
All that flapping about and singing, laying eggs and migrating – it is exhausting, even before you count all the foraging and hunting for food!
But we don’t have to stand idly by, we can help them lighten their load! We can make a bird feeder and fill it with tasty treats so they can focus on singing their favourite songs.
Did you know? The colour of a robin’s eggs is not red, like its chest, but blue!
PS. Before you get started… you may like to check out the video at the bottom of the page by clicking here…
Difficulty Level:
What you need:
Equipment:
- Coloured wooden lolly sticks (or plain ones painted)
- Glue gun or strong glue (a glue gun will be much easier)
- Strong string
Method:
- Lay out 12 lollipop sticks side by side. We’ve chosen to use green and yellow but you can decide your own colours!
- Glue another lollipop stick across the top of all the 12 lollipop sticks. Then glue one along the bottom. These will secure your base together
Hint – Hot glue guns can be really scorching so make sure you have an adult to help you use it! - Now turn your base so the 2 sticks you have just glued are on the sides. Glue another stick on top of the most recent two sticks at one end.
- Repeat the last step with the bottom edge. You should have a full square on top of your base now.
- Starting again with the top, then bottom and then both sides, repeat steps 2-4 to build another layer of lollipop sticks along the edges. We have made each layer obvious by using a different colour to make them show up better.
- Keep building up your layers until you have at least four.
- Make a square by glueing the edges of four lollipop sticks end to end.
- Repeat this and make another square.
- Now we need to connect these squares together in a cube shape. Start by glueing a stick into each corner.
- Glue the opposite ends of the 4 sticks from your last step to the other square you have made. You should now have a cube.
- Glue your cube onto the base.
- It is now time to make one side of the roof! Lay twelve lollipop sticks side by side again.
- Glue two more sticks across the laid out sticks, one at the top and the other at the bottom, about 1-2 cm (½ – 1 inch) away from the edges.
- Repeat step 12-13 to make the other side of the roof.
- Glue the two roof slats on top of the cube shape meeting in a point, this will make a house shape. Make sure the 2 extra sticks you glued on top of the others are inside each roof side. Hint: Use the sticks inside the roof to help you glue it onto the cube.
- Glue a stick underneath the point at the top to help make it more secure
- Make the bird a standing ledge by gluing a lollipop stick to the base of your bird feeder. Feed about an inch of the stick into one of the gaps in the layers you made.
- Thread a piece of string through the top of the bird house and tie it off.
- Find an epic place to hang your feeder, put some bird seed, or other food they would like in it and wait! You might hear the birds before you see them!
Be careful if it is very windy as you wouldn’t want your bird feeder to blow away!
Need a little extra help...
Why not watch the video?
Hint: You can also find more videos on our Video page here.
