Few things are as educational and delightful to watch as wild birds. They brighten the landscape with their song and quirky personalities. Encouraging such wildlife by creating a bird friendly landscape, supplementing their food, and providing homes will give your family entertainment from the feathered friends. Making a plastic bottle bird feeder is an inexpensive and fun way to provide much needed food and water.
What You Need to Make a Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder
Family friendly activities that also have beneficial impact on the local fauna are hard to find. Using bottles to feed birds is an upcycled way to keep birds hydrated and fed. Plus, you are repurposing an item that otherwise has no use except the recycle bin. A soda bottle bird feeder craft is an easy project in which the whole family can participate.
Creating a bird feeder with a plastic bottle and a few other items is a simple DIY craft. A standard two-liter soda bottle is usually around the house, but you can use any bottle really. It is the base for the plastic bottle bird feeder and will provide enough food for many days.
Clean the bottle well and soak to remove the label. Make sure you dry the interior of the bottle completely so the birdseed doesn't stick or sprout inside the feeder. Then you just need a few more simple items.
- Twine or wire for hanging
- Utility knife
- Skewer, chopstick, or thin dowels
- Funnel
- Birdseed
How to Make a Soda Bottle Bird Feeder
Once you have gathered your materials and prepared the bottle, some instructions on how to make a soda bottle bird feeder will speed things along. This soda bottle bird feeder craft is not difficult, but children should be helped since a sharp knife is involved. You can make the bird feeder with a plastic bottle right side up or inverted, the choice is yours.
In order to have larger capacity for seed, the inverted way will see the bottom as the top and provide more storage. Cut two small holes in the bottom of the bottle and thread twine or wire through for the hanger. Then cut two small holes on each side (4 holes total) of the bottle cap end. Thread skewers or other items through for perches. Two more holes above the perch will let seed out.
Using bottles to feed birds is cheap and easy, but you can also use them as a decorator craft project. Before filling the bottle, you can wrap it in burlap, felt, hemp rope, or anything else you like. You can also paint them.
The design is adjustable as well. You can hang the bottle upside down and food comes down near the perch. You might also choose to cut out a midsection of the bottle so birds can poke their head in and select seed. Alternatively, you can mount the bottle sideways with a cut out and birds perch on the edge and peck at seed inside.
Building plastic bottle feeders is a project that is limitless to your imagination. Once you have mastered that, perhaps you will make a watering station or nesting space as well. The sky's the limit.