Suddenly, cold winter came to Finland and shed its white blanket over the northern forests. After fixing our log houses, I had some leftover wooden panels and window screens. From those materials I designed and made a DIY bird feeder to help our neighbors to survive over the cold and dark winter. The birds have enjoyed the sunflower seeds I bought for them. I also taught them to eat from my hand. I usually serve nutritious nuts for them, and if I have only seeds on my hand, the coal tits start to poke my thumb and beg for nuts 😀 Recently, I also photographed beautiful, chilling sights at freezing night while the moon lightened the cold and snowy land. It is so relaxing to live here, in the land abandoned by so many people. The clueless people who do not understand what they miss as they are afraid of wet socks 🙂
Here is the DIY bird feeder. The seeds are added on top, and they come trough iron meshes below. Inside the feeder there is a V shaped metal sheet upside down that distributes the seeds evenly on both sides towards the meshes. Through the window screens I can easily see if the seeds are running out. The visible pile of seeds also attracts birds. I left the screens a little dirty, so that the birds do not try to fly through them; so far I haven’t observed any dangerous situations, the birds clearly see the glasses. Here a great tit is looking for a seed :> Oh, and the interfaces between the main body and the lower eaves are sealed with silicon, to avoid rain water leaking on to the meshes. Only outer wood surfaces are coated with boat varnish, so that the wood can breath and hopefully do not get moldy during time.
Some blue tits and beautiful bullfinches are eating at the feeder. I tried to design the feeder so that no excessive amount of seeds are dropped. However, especially the willow tits seem to throw a lot of seeds on the ground. Luckily, if I start to see sick birds, I can easily relocate the feeder to fresh ground, if that helps. I have also whistled with a couple of pygmy owls here; they hopefully take care the possible sick birds.
The second smaller container is for small stones btw, for the birds to fill up their gizzards.
A coal tit came to eat some delicious nuts full of fats!
Sometimes together we dig the pile of nuts and seeds to find a properly sized treats 🙂
“Oh, you have a camera, do I look good?” XD
The willow tits also eat from my hand, but are a little bit more shy than the coal tits.
Some blue tits are also enough brave to land on my hand to eat. Once the birds taste the nuts, they start to bother me even if I’m not right next to the feeder 😀
Oh no, I can see from the stare of the tits that they are “ready to rumble!” 😀
A not so common guest at the bird feeder, a long tailed tit! They look like white lollipops 😀
Anarcist punk tit, the crested tit came to wreck some seed hulls!
A brave little squirrel is searching seeds under the snow. He/she haven’t figured out yet that it would be easier to eat from my hand.
Nope.
Nope.
And nope.
Unfortunately, after installing the bird feeder, especially the great tits often visit our terrace. I don’t like it, because during summer we grill and spend time there. That is why I made this wooden owl with the staring eyes to scare the birds. As a pro tip, do not waste your time by trying the same; once a great tit landed on the owl and started to poke its eyes 😀
Once a cold and bright night came over the frozen forrest, and the moon light scared the darkness away. It was a beautiful but freezing night 🙂
The soil is somewhat frozen now, maybe I should storage the shovel and wait for the summer 😀
My new workshop.
The entrance to my workshop.
The bandsaw I got as a graduation gift has found its new home.
Once three deers walked right next to the garage, they almost visited our yard. More recently, three moose stared me right behind the right side forest.
Our widescreen television 🙂
It is so late, I’m getting sleepy and it is time to say good night. Oh btw, notice the smaller trophy under the capercaillie. It is the 100th hazel grouse of my life, I shot it during the autumn 🙂