Daily Dose Blogger Bios
Bird Bubble Bath (or not)
I love birds - who doesn't? Well, I'm sure SOME people don't love birds, but ... Anyway.
I want birds to be happy in my garden, so I have a lovely birdbath for them, but that birdbath is a big fake-out. After a couple of years of being eaten by mosquitoes (I am fairly certain NOBODY loves mosquitoes, except for maybe some type of scientist who has to love awful things, in order to study them for the benefit of mankind) I realized my birdbath was a breeding ground for skeeto larvae. Duh. Took me long enough.
At first I thought I could empty it every night and re-fill it in the morning. Three days of doing that kicked that idea to the curb - what a pain in the ass it was! The dish part of the bath was heavy, and then re-centering it on the pedestal while leaning over my aloes and echeverias was really annoying. I know. I'm a baby. Maybe that was that for the old birdie pool.
But I like my old Smith&Hawken birdbath. It isn't really my style anymore, but it was the first thing I bought for my garden - I couldn't bring myself to de-commission it. So I bought a big bag of clear glass marbles, and a few big hollow "bubbles" and turned my birdbath into a still life. I really loved the look - but I did feel bad for the birds who no longer had a pretty shallow bath with which to wet their feathers and their whistles.
The answer? A paella pan! I collect enamelware, and I have an old Dansk paella pan that I perch in different places around the garden - one week on the corner of my fence, the next week in the middle of my big monster aloe... wherever the spirit moves me. The birds love it, and it is the easiest thing to dump the water out at night and fill up in the morning. Now I have my bubbly bath that birds can't use (but that makes me happy) AND a place for my avian neighbors to frolic and hook-up.
You can find paella pans for a song at yard sales, or you can use any shallow, colorful dish that you can easily dump and refill - I'm sure it would make your local feathered friends very happy.
Do any of you have DIY birdbaths? Share! Let us copy you!
Isn't a paella pan sort of like a fondue pot, in that it sounded really good & made sense when you bought it? Then found it used more rarely than the blooming onion maker? I don't have a paella pan. Maybe I can put the fondue pot out there for the birds. I don't think they'd like the bread maker.
Actually, I never liked attracting birds. At my last house, they'd come and eat my grapes sit on the phone wires above the deck and leave a line of purple poop down the deck where they sat on the electric wires above.
Jim/ArtofGardening.org
I have a small, 2 tiered fountain that broke. When DH put it back together, it leaked. So now it holds 2 levels of succulents.
Birdbaths, tho - well they're an addiction. There are 6 in our back garden and a big fountain in the front. The birds love them all. Hopefully they eat the mosquito larvae.
JCharlier - Thanks for the laugh!
Why do I keep trying to attract birds? Because they do the same thing to me - I have my lovely little lounge-y area all decked out with stripe-y Fermob chairs, and they sit on the wires of my string lights and poop on everything! NOT ATTRACTIVE! But I have no grapes, so I have been spared the purple poo-poo accenting my outdoor furniture.
I have seven paella pans, and I have made paella ONCE! I have four fondue pots, and I have made fondue ONCE! My husband has put the kabosh on more collecting of kitchen ware. I wonder why???
Sumcool, dear, you know what I just realized? My original Smith&Hawken birdbath is in the path of my sprinklers. So in the morning, it gets a dose of water that trickles between the glass balls and creates a mosquito nursery - but the birds can't get to the larvae! SHEESH!!! I have to move my fake birdbath or lower the sprinklers. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, however unwittingly!
Have a great 4th! I know how great it is in your neck of the woods just about now ... but isn't it always that way up there?