Bird Feeding Station > Reviews (5)

Our bird station is more like a soup kitchen, all manner of miscreants from the animal and insect world pitching up for the daily feed. We have quite a big garden with pine trees and bushes at the top and so attract a wide slice of the animal and bird kingdom to our abode. We have placed the station near the back door so we can place scraps on the various trays and water holders as a typical British summer crumbles away. We have not had to fill the water trays since May. So much for global warming!

It has two lantern style feeders with hanging containers for nuts, both ringed by a mesh to stop the squirrels getting in, these two for birds only. The two trays below are open for all and are quickly emptied of whatever is on there. There is also a guard at the bottom to stop various creatures climbing up it, presumably cats, who are too snobby and arrogant to eat of these things around our way.

Squirrels, of course, are the sneakiness of them all and will try anything in your back garden to get food. No stunt or break in is out of bounds and right at this moment they will be planning tomorrow's raid in their snug drays (think Caddychack and those Gofers!). They do have style though and the animal world's great trapeze artist, able to balance on the narrowest of clotheslines and fence posts, any obstacle between free foods easily negotiated. If they weren't so cute and cheeky the government would have culled them along time ago. If the Poles don't take over Europe then these guys and girls will. Our local park is packed with them!

The most irritating visitors to our garden by a long way are those bloody Wood Pigeons, morons who spend all day pecking at each other and flapping their wings really loudly, enough to want to reach for the Purdy and blast them out of the trees! They are incredibly gormless and clumsy birds and if the bird station was a helipad then they would crash every time. The most majestic beast in our garden are a family of Sparrow Hawks, who return every summer in July/August to roost, their young more than adequate hunters now, half a pigeon on top of the hedge only last week. I wish I had some neon signs to point at the Wood Pigeons. Those two guys with stale Netto crisps would be a lovely snack.

Another irritant are the Magpies. Of late there have been more of them around and they like to clear their throats at about 4: am, before screeching the next two hours away to make sure all those people with their windows open in the summer are wide awake. The thing that really irks me with these guys is they deliberately stand about 50ft apart to have their morning rows, a vocabulary that seems to include just one screech. Because they are up with the sunrise they are the first to peck around at the bird station - after the rats have finished with it mind. Two week bin collections means the rats are also getting bigger. And don't get me started on the mice under my floorboards nibbling away all night. Ok, we are feeding them rock hard chips, Bakewell Tart crumbs and bacon rind but the Magpies 'aint alf' picky what they eat.

They flick it around all over the place and then clear off. I think they are more interested in the silver metal trays that the cakes. They tap on the windows when they spot one on my kitten sink draining board. Ile have that if you're not using it pal!

The last visitors on a week night tend to be hedgehogs, which rustle and grunt around all night in search of bugs and grubs, like a drunk looking for his keys, but confronted with stale Ritz Crackers and the rind of our Sunday joint if they get right in there. I reckon they live quite well of trash if they put themselves about, the 'freegans' of the bohemian animal community.

The Crows, the demons of the sky, tend not to eat at our gaff, mockingly croaking away at the fayre on offer. The night shift is owned by the town fox, a whole family of them living nearby. They are getting brazen these days, mum, dad and the kids trotting down the garden path at all hours for a feed. I have always wondered why foxes work by night, cats and dogs having no problem with the daylight. As for Badgers? Well they are not real.

Have you ever seen one?

Exactly!

Insect wise the flies much prefer the delights' of our bin and can make it stink up sweet with maggots on the hottest days of the summer. The Woodlice still seem to wonder around obliviously killing time with nowhere to go and the columns of ants seem to be more interested in the dishwasher and the sugar bowl than the grub in the bird station. Might have to get the old magnifying glass out and fry a few.

The Bird Station is surprisingly sturdy and stable and there's no way the wind or the Foxes can topple it, even the squirrels unable to hook the washing line around it to bring it down like Saddam's statue. Trust me, they are planning that. We also have a stray dog that is a little bit bonkers and races down the garden late at night to bark a bit and then spin around in circles and then leg it. It must be a full- moon thing. I think everyone knows a do like that. Then the foxes start yelping and that sets off the nearby sink estates status dogs for another dawn opera.

Its rust proof and you can fit your own containers on there if you want to give the birds more water volume when the sun shines. Price wise you can pick one up between ten and twenty pounds in places like B&Q and Wilkinson's and perhaps just too heavy to carry back from the shop. The welds were good on ours and the paint weather proof and presumably non toxic. You can also buy a cheaper plastic version but that would probably blow down in the wind or topple when the squirrels get on it. My hawks would just fly away with it!
Summary: A must to keep the birds off the grass seed