Bird Pad

Not all birds like all bird seed.  Ya just can't make all the birds happy all the time. 

What the picky eaters do is shovel aside the seed they only eat when starving to get to the seed that is tasty to their pallet (do birds have a pallet?).  This selective eating causes a big mess under the feeder.  To exacerbate the mess my feeder was over rocks.  To further exacerbate the mess, the birds would add copious amounts of poop.  As you may imagine after a few years this gets to be pretty disgusting.

I decided it was time to do something about it and the pictures below are my first attempt to remedy this messy situation short of just stop feeding the birds.

Yes ladies and gents, behold the "Bird Pad."  It seemed to me that I had to get rid of the rocks and provide an area for the seed to fall that was cleanable.  To accomplish this I shoveled out numerous wheelbarrow loads of clay soil, discarded bird seed, poop and rocks.  The hole that was left was filled with some stuff called road base.  I packed that down using a 6 X 6 timber and then put down a layer of sand followed by the rectangle concrete blocks.  I made a small retaining wall to the back to make it look nice.

You may have noticed the bird feeder isn't over the bird pad.  I haven't decided, yet, if I'm going to put the feeder there... or anywhere actually.  I'm considering making a few feeders that are similar to tables only the table will be a screen.  Pour the food on top of the screen and the birds can eat off the table.  Any water in the form of rain won't accumulate and the mess will be easily controlled.  It's just another to-do. 

Check back to this very blog for an update in the near future.

Whoohoo...