Tuesday, March 31, 2009

homemade treats for the birds

yesterday we decided to make a treat for our feathered friends and our furry squirrel friends too:-)


the ingredients, some natural peanut butter, corn muffin mix- cornmeal works but this is what we had really the same thing- sunflower seeds, and cranberries, you can use raisins too or peanuts , or whatever you happen to have, experiment to see what the critters like. Cornmeal is a binder and holds it all together-like breadcrumbs in meatloaf-.



adding in the goodies, we just put it in, and stirred till it was pretty stiff- it was sort of a clay consistency, which can be molded into balls or chilled and cut in to blocks, or wrapped on tree limbs.





putting out the finished treat for the birds and squirrels to enjoy, we smeared some on the trees- which the woodpeckers, and nuthatches ate up very quickly. We put some pieces in our platform feeder, the jays and black grackles like this, and hung some in a suet bag- really the pieces of an onion bag cut and tied- I saw a squirrel licking this today it was so cute.




5 comments:

Molly Betsy @ Star Cottage said...

Making homemade birdy snacks is one of my girls favorite things to do. I never thought of using cornmeal. What a great idea! Yummy those birds must be pretty happy.

Beverly said...

I bet the birds are so happy. I love feeding the birds!

Toni said...

actually the squirrles are the ones doing cartwheels in the yard, they ae actually likcing it off the trees its actually pretty funy to see. and my yellow lab is getting lots of running in chasing and barking at them and all the big black birds that are coming.

The cornmeal is a binder in the mixture it helps hold it all together, and lots of birds like corn so its a healthy filler for them too.

Madeline said...

I like that one because there's no litter left once the birds have eaten the food. Very cool!

Sandy said...

My kids just love feeding the birds and squirrles!