Berry Bird Buffet

I have added berries from my garden to this planter

When the leaves falls and the temperatures drop, I start unearthing my bird feeders and stocking up on suet, seed, and, and dried fruit for the birds.  Trying my best to satisfy the different varieties of birds with an array of delicacies that consistently feed birds the most nutritious and attractive foods, is my goal.

You can make your own suet

But it takes time, money, and dedication to provide the food necessary to keep birds healthy and happy. And why do we do this? Is it just the satisfaction of tracking the variety of birds to our yards so we can keep “yard lists”?  For me, I love watching the behaviors, songs, colors, and enjoy the show they put on right in front of me. And with so much wild land being developed, birds need to have alternate sources of sustenance.

Observing birds nest is one benefit of having birds visit your yard

And as a photographer, I want to bring the birds up close so I can photograph them. For that reason, I am ready to fill my feeders with the most nutritious foods and am always looking for ways to vary the offerings to attract some more unusual varieties.

Since I love to create containers, I decided to put together a ‘bird buffet’ container using a recently emptied container killed by frost.

Line an old metal plant stand with landscape cloth and add soil if starting from scratch
Same container dripping with begonias early in the summer

After cleaning out my container, but leaving the soil, I browsed my yard to pick up all kinds of berries and seed heads. Collecting echinacea seed heads, winterberry, purple and white Callicarpa, scarlet Viburnum,  and Blackberry Lily berries, was easy to do in mid-November before the birds have cleaned me out.

Edge the container with draping evergreens, sticking them into the soil; Here I use Arborvitae;  There is some creeping Jenny left over from the old container
In the back, I placed the Echinacea seed heads and added lots of berries in the front and middle
The black berries are Blackberry Lily, a perennial, and the red is Erie Viburnum
I set a bird house on top of a block of wood so you can see it better
I tried some deer antlers but decided not to use them
Sprays of millet completed the buffet;  Find these at pet stores

Make sure you water the container so it is moist, not soggy. Once the freezing weather arrives, the soil freezes keeping everything in place.

Next up is my recipe for home made suet and a DIY of a seed covered bird house.

 

 

 

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