Читать книгу Gardens and Parks - Nick Baker - Страница 11

Go to any garden centre and take a look at the bird tables that are available. You can get them with balconies, balustrades, porches, even thatched roofs and chimneys. Some even come with a nest box upstairs! Personally, I think that some of them are just too ornate and in my experience, although they can all work to a greater or lesser degree, they fall short of actually providing what the birds want and need, which is a nice stable, spacious platform that is easy to keep clean.

Bird will eat off pretty much anything and, as with all things to do with wildlife, there are no hard and fast rules, so you can experiment. To get you started, here is a very simple and effective step-by-step project to build a bird table.

YOU WILL NEED

> 35 x 50cm piece of marine or exterior quality plywood, a minimum of 1cm thick

> 130 x 1 x 1cm batten cut into two 25cm lengths and two 40cm lengths

> 2cm galvanized wood screws

> Phillips screwdriver

> Water-based wood preservative and paintbrush (optional)

> 4 cup hooks

> 1.8m wooden post with a flat top and a sharp end

> 4 angle brackets

1 The piece of plywood is the feeding platform and to this you need to attach the edging strips, two of which are a little shorter than the shorter sides of the plywood to give you gaps in the corners for making it easier to sweep clean. They also allow rainwater to drain off.

2 Screw the edging strips to the board. Use at least two screws on each short strip and three on the longer edges. At this stage, you can paint and protect the bird table with a water-based preservative, which will stop the wood rotting.

3 Now attach your table to the post using the angle brackets, screwing the brackets to the post first.

4 Screw the brackets to the bottom of the feeding platform. You could also attach some hooks to the post and to the corners on the underside of the table to hang seed feeders and bird cakes from. Choose the location for your bird table and drive your post into the ground as far as it will go, with a minimum of 40cm under the ground’s surface. You can now coat this with wood preservative too.