|
|
Pretty and practical, Desert Steel hand-fashions bird feeders with pops of color for your landscape.
Take the yellow and velvet sunflower bird feeders as a glowing example for us all.
Setting the pace for a punch of backyard bling!
Fill these stunning feeders with whatever seed you think will attract backyard birds, but we have a few tricks up our sleeves as well.
Here are six snacks backyard birds love and you can chow down right with them. After all, who doesn’t like snacking? Especially healthy snacking!
How to enter to WIN!
Just leave a comment below letting us know you signed up for our email subscription and tell us which bird feeder you hope to win~ the yellow or the velvet.
Bonus entry and extra luck if you follow us on Facebook and share this post on your timeline!
Please let me know if you earned 1 or 2 entries and your FB name if you also entered that way. Thanks!
And if you’re not following RYG on Instagram, I’d appreciate it so much!!!
Email addresses and Facebook follows help me contact you if you win! Ends September 16th, 2019!
6 snacks that are for the birds!
1.) roasted seeds
Yet even I tend to shoo the birds away from my sunflower plants and seeds. I’m hoping the seeds will fall to the ground after they bloom and re-plant themselves the following year. Usually they do!
You can roast all sorts of seeds including squash, pumpkin and sunflower. Bake up a batch and share half with the birds.
I leave their share plain but you probably want to add olive oil, salt and other additives for flavor.
Then you can snack right along with the birds you are watching…maybe they’ll even steal your snack!
Northern cardinals and sparrows will be particularly appreciative!
2.) peanut butter
Men seem to hate coconut, Um. Yes?! Any male coconut fans out there? I need to hear from you!
And peanut butter is actually a popular base for many homemade suet cakes. But many birds will swoop down for scrumptious peanut butter on its own.
Two easy ways to serve your feathered guests is to either stuff the holes of a log bird feeder with it or smear it on the bark of a tree.
Blue jays and woodpeckers are going swoon with delight with the creamy snack you are providing!
3.) jelly
So it’s a no-brainer that birds relish jelly almost as much as peanut butter. No wonder, the sweet, fruity stuff is mouth-watering yummy.
Grape jelly is the love language of orioles if that’s “your bird.”
Tanagers, gray catbirds, and red-bellied woodpeckers are other species that can’t resist jelly temptations.
I’ve seen special jelly feeders at bird stores, but why bother? You can fill just about any shallow container about 1 inch deep with jelly to lure the birds.
4.) fruit
Fruit is safe if you know what I mean. No sketchy ingredients mixed in. And who doesn’t love delicious and refreshing fruit?
Your feathered friends totally agree!
Tanagers are thrilled with fruit feeding stations. Orioles love orange halves. Fruit might also attract robins and mockingbirds.
Now is the time to experiment. Try any fruit you have!
Blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries and strawberries are sure to draw in a plethora of birds. Even dried fruit and raisons do the trick.
One quick idea? Try filling your empty orange peels with jelly or peanut butter for a big bird boost!
5.) baked eggshells
And baked eggshells provide calcium for the birds, this can be really important for females during nesting season.
But if you feed your feathered friends eggshells, it is vital that you wash them and bake them first. You want to kill off any potential pathogens.
After baking them, crush them with your hand and mix in with whatever birdseed you have or stick them in the peanut butter or jelly.
Use any of the Desert Steel bird feeders by adding a few baked and crushed eggshells to the seed mix.
Or just sprinkle them on the ground if that’s easiest for you.
6.) nuts
Unsalted nuts are best for the birds if you have them.
But if all you’ve got are salted nuts, put them in a paper bag and shake them around to get the excess salt off. A little salt won’t hurt the birds, but too much isn’t good for them either. Just like us!
Many times, I find that I purchase nuts from the store and they are past their prime. I won’t eat them if they taste funny or a little “off.”
Stale nuts are the same. Won’t eat them. So I save them for the birds.
Peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts, try what you have! Give them a whirl. See what your neighborhood birds like.
It’s not a bad idea to smash them up a bit first. After all, an almond is pretty big for a bird to eat whole!
Desert Steel is to die for!
Not only for their personal values and integrity, but for the ridiculously high caliber of their products.
After all, a business is made up of people, people just like you and I trying to support our families.
As a mom of three, I should know by now that playing favorites is wrong, but with Desert Steel I can’t help myself!
They are one of my favorite companies to team up with year after year. This is why I can highly endorse them to you. I’ve been working with them for years!
Much of the Desert Steel portfolio is hand-crafted right on the rolling plains of Kansas.
The magic starts with a flat sheet of Kansas steel where the parts are cut, folded, pressed and welded to create art for your yard that you’ll enjoy for many years to come.
It doesn’t get anymore family-owned and operated than this, right here in the glorious U.S.A.
And I love supporting US businesses with a high moral compass, don’t you?
The yellow one would look GREAT in my yard.