We wanted the birds to have something to eat. We observed the school garden and saw robins, blackbirds, starlings and wagtails.
We found out that they like to eat seeds, when they cannot get worms or berries.
We want them to have somewhere safe to perch while they eat the seeds. We don’t want mice or rats to be able to get the food.
We looked at some shop-bought feeders for ideas.
Our science experiment went like this:
-We pierced some small holes so the birds could get at the seeds.
-We pierced some slightly bigger holes near the bottom and stuck in the empty twistable cartridges to form a perch.
-We tied string around the neck of the bottle so it could be hung from the branch of a tree in our school garden.
Results:
We made a sturdy bird feeder that small birds can use for a good snack.
Problems and how we fixed them:
-The first thing we noticed was how hard it was to pierce the plastic bottle. We needed to let Teacher do it for safety reasons.
-We made a paper funnel to make it faster to fill our feeder with seeds. When we tried it at first, the seeds spilled all over the place!
-At first our holes were too big, so as we poured in our seeds, they were just coming out again. We didn’t want to throw away our bottle so we used waterproof tape to cover the holes and made new smaller ones.
-The guide said to use pencils for the perches but we did not want to waste any. We designed them from used up twistables instead.
What we learned:
We learned what birds visit our school garden and what they eat. We learned that they can’t hover so they need a bird feeder with a perch. We learned that some bird feeders encourage mice and other pests so they have to be safe to use near our school.
Next time we might try a cardboard carton instead, because the plastic was hard to pierce, although this will not last as long in Ireland’s weather. Some fruits come in containers that have holes already in them to allow air to circulate, but this would not protect the seeds from pests.
We are going to observe if we get more birds in our garden. We will keep learning about the best designs for bird feeders.