Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Bird pudding

Last week we visited a bargain book sale run by our local library. Among many good picture books, we also picked up the Usborne Book of the Seasons (which is a slightly different version of this one). It's a wonderful book with many fun projects for children (Hannah has suggested we make snowglobes next).


One of the winter activities is 'Bird pudding' for our cold, hungry neighborhood birds. First we glued fabric onto 6 empty yoghurt containers for aesthetic reasons. Then I threaded a piece of yarn through the base of each one. We mixed about 1 cup each of breadcrumbs and oats with 2 cooked and mashed potatoes, then added about 250g melted cooking fat. This was divided between the yoghurt containers then left to set. The final step is to hang them upside down, and wait for the birdies to come flocking in.


This activity is probably better for older children but Hannah (3.5) was able to help with pasting, stirring the pudding and spooning it into the containers. I'm having some doubts about whether our southern hemisphere birds are hungry enough. This may be more suitable for bird-lovers in colder, snowier climes where food is more scarce. I thought it was worth a try though.

Our puddings have been hanging for a few hours now .... no signs of hungry birds yet. I'll let you know if we succeed in tempting some avian locals.

2 comments:

Shellbells said...

have you had any success yet?? was just wondering if it works.cause if it does then i will try it with my kids

Kym said...

No takers for the bird pudding yet. We moved them to a tree earlier this week. Maybe they need branches underneath to be able to get to the food?? I've been told it can take a little while for birds to discover something like this. I'll leave them up for another week or so ...