Window-Ledge Bird-Feeding Station From Scrap

I'm a birder, and have always fed the birds in my garden, but I now live in a first-floor flat* with no garden or outdoor space where I can install a bird-feeding station. I'm also currently Making to a very tight budget.

So, this is how I built a feeding-station for the ledge outside my living room window, using nothing but scrap materials and left-overs.

(*Note for Americans: you'd call it the second floor.)

I used an MDF board, an MDF offcut (both acquired for free from the scrap pile left by a joiner who installed some shelving at work), some 10mm square dowel and some bamboo skewers, PVA craft-glue, garden wire and the last squirts from spray-cans of black paint and clear lacquer. I bought them cheap, years ago, when a hardware store closed its paint section down.

The tools I used were a thin marker-pen, saw, hand-drill, and a Stanley knife.

There are no hard-and-fast rules to follow - I was largely working by eye, literally cutting to fit my cloth. The board is 130mm wide, 12mm thick, and I cut it down to 600mm in length to fit on the windowsill between two very uneven sections of the ledge.

(You can see where I started from - a cracked plastic tray on the ledge, plus a few scattered scraps that keep rolling or blowing off the ledge.)

The plastic box I've been using on the ledge is probably too deep for birds to use easily. I used the offcut as a ruler to mark a line part-way down the box, and then used the Stanley knife to cut it down to a more useful height.

I built a "box" on the end of the board to hold the tray in place - two taller end-walls from the part I cut off the board, and two lower side-walls from the offcut.

I drilled holes in one corner of the end-walls to push a bamboo skewer through to act as a perch.

I cut the square dowel down to two parts to stop seed rolling & blowing off the board, leaving a gap at each end for drainage and to sweep off debris. I didn't add a dowel to the side nearest the wall, because it was "up hill", and against the window-frame.

I want to attract a range of birds to the station, right throughout the year, so I need to be able to put fat-balls and fruit out.

I simply drilled two holes in the end of the board to wedge in a pair of bamboo skewers (a pair is both stronger than a single, and will stop things spinning as birds try to eat.

I don't want to paint the skewers, in case the paint taints the fruit, so I did not glue the skewers in place, they're just held in place by friction and gravity, and can be easily replaced whenever they get too manky.

On a side note, I highly recommend keeping your eye out for a cheap or second-hand hand-drill. They're quiet, don't need batteries, and are just as quick as battery-powered drills when it comes to making small-diameter holes. Many people also find them more controllable, when a wandering drill-tip could cause damage. Keep an eye on car boot sales, vintage markets, or your favourite online auction sites. If you can't wait, they're available new online for under a tenner.

I can't fix the station directly to the window ledge because the building my flat is part of is a protected manor-house, so I'd need special permission to alter the fabric of the structure.

I drilled two holes in the board, and passed lengths of plastic-coated garden wire from them, through the sash window, and to two short lengths of the square dowel that I kept aside for the purpose.

(Please ignore the state of the paint - I'm not allowed to decorate the flat yet...)

Glue. Lots and lots of glue.

I used lots of PVA glue to fix and seal the joints, putting in enough that it squooshed out of both sides of the joint, and clamped them firmly for 24 hours (I used some of my heavier books to do the work).

Whatever glue you use must be completely dried before you paint or seal the station.

MDF is not weatherproof, so the station needs to be sealed against the elements.

I used black spray-paint, plus a coat of clear lacquer - both came from my stash.

While the glue was drying, I put together a simple spray-booth in the spare room, using old newspaper and a roll of thin plastic meant for protecting furniture as you decorate. I can't remember where the roll came from - I've been using it for at least eight years (it first made its appearance on Instructables way back in 2014), covering my workspace while I spray. I think it cost less than a fiver, but it's nowhere near running out, so that's pretty good value. You don't have to make a spray-booth if you have an outside space to spray in, or you're using paint or varnish with a brush. If you do need a spray booth, you could always cover the space with just newspaper.

The slippers are only there to show where I'll be standing as I spray - do not wear suede while spray-painting!

Note that I did not paint the bamboo skewers. I did not paint the perch over the water simply because I think it looks better like that. I did not paint the fruit-skewers because I worried about tainting the fruit (what would the acid in the fruit do in contact with the paint?). In both cases, if the bamboo goes manky, I can simply replace it - I have about 200 in my stash...

I also smooshed a blob of PVA glue into the various drilled holes with a piece of wire to coat the inside of the holes and make sure water doesn't penetrate.

I tied length of garden-wire to each of the holes in the board and passed them through the sash window to the pieces of square dowel on the inside of the window. The wire doesn't need to be taught, it's just an anchor to stop it slipping off.

Pour water in the dish, spread food on the board, and push fruit and/or fat onto the dowels, close the window, and see what arrives.

I've just put some stale crusts and half an apple on the station for the purposes of illustrating this Instructable. For the proper things to feed the birds in your garden (as well as the things to avoid), check this link. If, like me, you're working on a tight budget, then you can still give the birds good food without having to spend money on specialist feeds: check this link.

When I need to top up the station, I simply slide up the sash. If it needs intensive cleaning, I can just lift it into the flat.

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