Birdy treats - a mumsnet pledge?

[hobbgoblin10]

Who wants to join me in making a pledge to cook up an Avian treat today with the DC?

I propose as many of us as possible may a lard/suet bird cake for our gardens. Good Sunday afternooon fun for the DC, lifesaving for the birds.

Post your pics, recipes, etc. here...

I'm off to the shops for mealworms, seed and lard!

I put stuff out yesterday and they haven;t touched it. (tsk)

ooh really?

are they being fussy? What did you put out?

I put out apple, bread and raisins. Fussy buggers

They never ate my Ready Brek or pancakes either. Maybe they want maple syrup. I'm going to buy fat balls (oo-er missus) from B and M Bargins today.

Coco you missed cyb's thread last night - she was calling you in active convos

Done lard/seed/kitchen scraps cake already - mistle thrush tucking in!

I cannot. I feel terrible, but one of my cats already brought a bird into the bedroom this morning - DH rescued it and it flew off from an upstairs window, seeming no worse for its experience, but both our cats are seasoned hunters and I can't risk luring the birds into a trap.

I've put out a 'normous plate of scraps from my bacon sarnie

lard, breadcrumbs, bits of fruit, ground up peanuts, bird seed being melted right now and then squished in to shapes.

Dd dipped some big pine cones into the mix which she is going to tie on to the tree outside.

The blackbird and robin have taken to sitting right on the doorstep so they have been given some breadcrumbs soaked in fat.

I agree LadyG - I cannot draw them in to a painful death

I do the lard things as I go along. I tip the fat into a container and add crumbs, left over cereals etc as they come up and let it set

Made something similar with dd earlier - meltedlard/bacon fat, stale bread , mixed seeds. Just waiting for them to cool and set a bit then they can be put out

Did ours yesterday- best advice, get the kids sitting on the kitchen floor to do the mixing, it is a messy business!

oooo. due to overambitious christmas shopping I have a lard mountain. i've also run out of meal worms and seed. so I can make some lardy -left-over cake for the birds. brilliant.

We've got a bucket of RSPB fat balls, but I was thinking of concocting something from the dripping lurking in my fridge and some unlovely potatoes (accidentally bought 'whites' rather than King Eds a few weeks ago). Presumably they'd go for boiled spud infused with dripping?

And I refilled our 4 seed feeders just before coming on here, and the water I put out this morning is still liquid

is it ok to use white vegetable fat instead of lard?

i'm veggie and sorry but i cannot bring myself to buy lard....

I don't have lard, what fat can I use? I have unsalted butter going begging, is that ok? Otherwise we only have oil.

I made a seed feeder out of a cola bottle yesterday and hung it up and am going to do a water one now but assume it will freeze overnight.

I'm sure any unsalted fat or oil is fine. Its calories they need. After all, what's in sunflowers and peanuts that's so good for birds?

JackiePauper was going to ask the exact thing! I have some Trex in the fridge, that'd work wouldn't it?

I have put 3 feeders out now with seeds and raisins in. I can't get a water feeder up high enough to hang straight - I did one and let it go and all the water fell on my head - SHall look at doing a fat contraption tomorrow.

Jackie - I'm veggie too and used unsalted butter instead. I made golf ball sized fat balls with butter, seeds, peanuts, suet, dried fruit, oats and anything else I could find. They dissapeared in about 3 hours and there were 6 to start with! Broken up pieces of cheese are also really popular.

Just had a pair of parakeets on ours. dc off to check the supplies now.