I made one like Pudge posted last year, with an old plant hanger and a terracotta pot dish. The birds liked it and it was easy to fill. But it got water in and froze, and fell apart. I wonder if they make frost proof terracotta dishes?

Gillian, you could use a plastic terra colored pot tray/dish and drill holes in the sides for the plant hanger to go through. Also, you could take a smaller drill and drill holes in the bottom of it to let any water through. I use sunflowers for the birds only so, the size of the holes could be a lot larger here than if you used the mixed birdseed because of the size of the millet. The only disadvantage that I can think of is that plastic trays wouldn't be as heavy as the terra cotta ones, but you could put a few rocks in it to add weight. The wind wouldn't blow it around as much then. The birds would still find the birdseed.

Brenda

Good idea Brenda, maybe I could even hang something heavy on the tassel at the bottom of the hanger instead of rocks in the dish. What I liked about this feeder was that the chickadees seem to prefer a more open perch than having to pick through a little slot in my other feeder.

Oh and my #1 homemade bird feeder is two volunteer sunflowers, I just left them there and the nuthatches are all over them. That was easy!

Speaking of bird feeding...

Yesterday I was sitting at the computer, checking the emails and saw this crawling on the floor of the foyer...

I quickly put on my garden gloves and grabbed him and put him outside on top of the limestone pillar. It was about 3C outside. He thought so too!!

He sat for a while in a ball and then uncurled himself...

This is a regular golf ball that the dogs have chewed on to compare the size of him...

A few minutes after the picture with the golf ball...a chickadee came along and picked him up and carried him to the lilac tree branch and had him for lunch. I wasn't able to get a picture of that because the lilac branches were in the way.

Brenda

LOL at the chilly curled up spider! Poor thing. It's a cat face spider, I get huge ones around the back door light but I've never seen one in the house (thank goodness). That's probably a real gourmet meal for a chickadee.

Eeeeeewwwwww!!!

Eeeewww! is right. That's why I used the gloves!

It is nice to get a name for it. I love the fuzzy legs and multicolors on the legs. Where does the cat face name come from, do you know, Gillian?

Brenda

Apparently they're also called Jewel Spiders. The markings and colouration on them are extremely variable - I get almost white and dark brown ones living right next to each other - but usually you can make out a cat face pattern on their abdomen... you can kinda make it out upside-down on the darker spider on the left here.

http://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/natural/insects/bugsfaq/jewelspd.htm

Spiders...ick.

That milk jug feeder is an excellent idea - I may try my hand at one.

I like the terra cotta dish feeder that I fashioned. I've never had trouble with the dishes freezing or cracking, but yeah, they do fill up with water, snow, etc. Mine hold either Niger, Canary Seed or Canola. The House Sparrows never feed from them.

I got DH to make a couple of hanging platform feeders that are screened on the bottom. We drilled holes around the outside frame and fed thru a bunch of cord, used a keyring as a hanger. I'm pretty sure I've posted pics of this before. They work well for mostly all birds except the big ones. The House Sparrows initially didn't like all that cord but they've now gotten used to it and feed from there. At least they don't knock all the seed out.

Speaking of sunflowers, we dried some heads this year. Last year I just stabbed them onto a nail on the birdfeeding arbor, but this year I used 3 lengths (4', I think) of rebar, poked them in the ground (one straight up and the other 2 at an angle from the same point in the ground) and then put the heads on top of that - tres cool looking. The uses for lengths of rebar never fail to amaze me. I'd like to do another one - a 6' length straight up then 5 shorter ones at an angle around the tall one. Or, 5 different lengths close together all sticking straight up.

Some good ideas here!
Brenda, I like your spider!...Oh..no more!

I use bottles for many years now, I like the heavier plastic ones, like the 4 litre juice bottle, they have a nice
size opening, for sunflower, also 5 gal.pail, I put a plastic basket, lined with window screen] under the pail, to catch the falling sunflower.

This picture without the basket

With basket

Also pop bottles, with jop stick, and without, just hang on a tree with braches.

Konard, I really like your 5gallon pail feeder! A person could fill it and not have to worry about feeding every other day. I have a few pails around, I think I'll try it.

Sharon