for the birds – easy children’s project to attract birds

Yesterday started out as another typical frenetic Saturday at my household. Horses to feed, hockey game to attend, shopping to do, housekeeping to ignore – the usual.

We won the hockey game. I ignored the shopping. The housekeeping got mostly done by me and the kids with liberal doses of me saying “My name is not Dobby!”.

The afternoon was greyish, so I occupied the kids by using leftover ribbon and yarn to make this project. I remember finding beautiful little white horsehair birds nests around the barn last year after we had groomed the white pony. I’ve also read that you can leave out bits of yarn for the birds to make their nests. I found a few project ideas on line – some people poke the strings out through grapevine balls and hang them from trees, which looked great, but I didn’t have any and didn’t feel like traipsing through burdock looking for grapevine.

I bought a suet feeder cage at the hardware store and we lined the bottom with some sphagnum moss leftover from the small squeaky kid’s diarama project. We cut up bits of yarn, ribbon, raffia, jute, etc. into 4 to 8″ lengths and stuffed them in the cage until it was full. We hung it in a conspicuous spot out back and now we’ll keep watch to see if we can spot any colourful nests around this summer.

We also put out a birdhouse,

put water in the bird feeder,

and put out some birdseed.

We are still waiting for the birds to come. I think the sudden dip in temperature and the grey day yesterday had them hiding away somewhere else. The girls spent part of the afternoon upstairs in their bedroom watching the string feeder through binoculars, so I did provide some quiet time. Mission accomplished.

Linking to Tater Tots and Jello, Six Sister’s Stuff, I {heart} Naptime, Too Much Time on My Hands, Simply Klassic Home, Folk Haven, A Pinch of Joy, Bringing Beauty, Our Delightful Home, It’s So Very Cheri, Frugally Sustainable, Cozy Home Scenes, A Peaceful Mom