Discover nature
How to make an upcycled bird feeder
Convert a milk carton into a bird feeder for watching and feeding native birds.
What you’ll need
What you’ll need
From nature:
- Branch approx. 30 cm long
- Small branch approx. 5 cm long
From home:
- Tetra Pak carton with a screw cap, e.g., milk or juice carton (well-rinsed and dry)
- Serrated kitchen knife
- Awl
- Ruler
- Waterproof marker or ballpoint pen
- String approx. 50 cm
- Grain feed for birds (such as you find in a hardware store)
How to do it
1. Draw the opening with the ruler and pen on the lower section of your carton as follows:
2. Cut along the marked edges with the serrated knife. Ask an adult to help you.
3. Fold the larger cardboard tab outwards and upwards. It will be the roof over the entrance to your bird feeder.
4. Push the lower cardboard tab inwards.
5. Center the awl or the tip of the knife below the opening and drill a hole straight through both the carton and folded tab. Also make a hole on the opposite side. Ask an adult to help you here.
6. Push your branch through the holes on each side. This gives the birds somewhere to sit when pecking at the seed.
7. To hang your feeder, place the short branch (about 5 cm) in the middle of a thread of yarn and knot it tight.
8. Now slide it through the spout of the Tetra Pak carton so that it is positioned horizontally inside.
9. Pull the thread out of the hole as far as you can and screw on the lid.
10. Fill your bird feeder with birdseed and hang it outside on a tree.
Topsy’s tip
Topsy’s tip
- Ideally, feed the birds when it is freezing outdoors, and food is in really short supply. Make sure that the food stays dry and clean.
- You could also paint your bird feeder with waterproof paint (e.g., acrylic) or glue on natural materials.
- Watch the birds that come to feed in your garden or on your balcony – commit them to memory and paint a copy of them. Do you recognize certain birds? Do the same ones keep appearing? Do you hear them singing every now and then?
Learn with Topsy
Learn with Topsy
- Have you hung up your bird feeder yet? Maybe you have already seen some birds using your birdhouse. You will be happy to know that native birds are usually good at finding food on their own in winter. But sometimes, if it has been very cold for a long time and there is lots of snow around, their food supply can grow scarce. So they are grateful, especially during long winters, for support from people who help them find food.
- Birds that feed solely on insects in winter fly south before the winter begins and there are fewer insects for them. But there are also birds, such as our native tit and finches, that adopt a vegetarian diet in winter and feed mainly on tree seeds in the cold months. The chaffinch then feeds mainly on beechnuts. In winter, they cannot gather nuts directly from the tree, so they have to pick them up from the ground. A thick layer of snow or ice can make this hard.
- At your bird feeder, you will probably also see blackbirds and robins, that do still hunt on the ground for hibernating insects – even in winter. Since they do not find insects easily under the snow of a long winter, these birds are grateful for a small meal of grain at your bird feeder.
