Feed Birds Winter Decorations: Edible Décor Birds Will Love

By Ellen Russell

This Winter, think about feeding the birds when hanging your Christmas and Winter decorations. Winter decorating, and the Christmas season in particular, can be an expensive endeavor. Loads of money will be spent each year on decorations that will be discarded in landfills and add to the pollution of the planet. As the people of the world become more conscious of the fact that we are not alone on this planet, we begin to consider the effect of our fancies on the animals and birds around us.

Many decorations, or the trash created when they blow apart around the yard and through the woods, become dangers and toxins to birds and other critters living around us. But a step back in time to a gentler, more natural choice in decoration can not only save decorating dollars, but can safeguard birds and provide hard to find Winter food for them as well.

Take a hike! In your own backyard, or a nearby wooded area, there is loads of potential decorating materials that are not only safe for birds, but feeds them as well. Couple these with inexpensive grocery store items, and you’ll have the most bird friendly, attractive Winter decorations in the neighborhood. Go for a nature hike and gather greens from evergreens and groundcovers, pine and evergreen cones, interesting nuts, pods and seeds. Wild vines and berries, crab apples, hips from roses and wild flowers, and dried up seed filled flower heads are a short list of items to look for.

From the grocery store (or harvested local and wild varieties nearby), slice and dry fruits like apples and plums. Look for other nuts and seeds, anything soft enough to push a needle through. Buy cranberries and prepackaged dried fruits. Purchasing a bag of trail mix can save you a lot of work slicing and drying. Popcorn is another traditional food used for Winter decorating and feeding of wildlife. It may sound obvious, but stroll down the bird seed aisle and look for potential decorations there, too.

Let your creativity and imagination guide you, but think ahead to what you will use items for and how you will attach them. For most items, you will need to be able to push a needle or wire through them for stringing. Glues could be toxic to birds and animals, and glued decorations may not stand up to wind and the elements. If you are willing to give a little more effort, decorative elements such as acorns can be prepared for crafting by making a hole through them with a small drill bit. Pierce apples, fruits and nuts with an awl or large nail to make a hole for stringing.

Now that you have collected all these great decorative elements, how do you turn woodland trash to decorative yard treasure? The possibilities are limited only by your imagination, but here are a few basic ideas to get you started.

Wreaths and Swags

Make a basic wreath base from greens, princess pine, twigs, grasses or vines, or save time by purchasing a plain straw wreath from a craft store. Twist Grapevines or lengths of Staff Vine or Winterberry into quick and easy wreaths. By spiraling the vines around bundled circles of vine, the wreath should hold its shape, but you can hold the vines together with small pieces of craft wire if it is easier.

For a simple wreath made of evergreens, cut a pile of sprigs all to the same length. Stretch a coat hanger into a circle, keeping the hook at the top to hang the wreath. Start with one sprig, hold it close to the stretched hanger and wire the two together by wrapping craft wire around the sprig a couple of times. Lay a new sprig on top of the wired green. Wrap wire to the stem and repeat the process, continuing around the hanger, until the circle is completely filled with greens. (To save time, you may be able to attach a few sprigs of greens at once, so long as you are able to achieve even spacing and adequately hide the wires with the spray.) This basic set of directions works with virtually any wreath material. Princess Pine, a short, soft, tree like ground cover which grows beneath evergreen stands, is widely used for making wreaths this way, and does not need to be cut as it all grows to about the same height (usually 4 or 5 inches).

To the wreath base, add seeds, pods, berries and nuts. Skewer berries and fruit pieces and place them decoratively around your wreath. Acorn, nuts and pinecones look striking and welcome hungry squirrels and others. Tuck in short sections of Winterberry or Staff Vine. Holly sprigs and berries add color and are a traditional Christmas ornamentation. Birds commonly seek out the berries of Winterberry, Staff Vine (sometimes mistakenly called Bittersweet) and Holly. Hips from roses and other bushes and flowers add both color and an abundance of seed birds and wildlife love to eat. (Rose hips are small round balls, usually red, that look like a small fruit or large cherry.)

Want a fabulously colored Christmas or Winter display of red? Buy an inexpensive straw wreath base from a craft store and a few bags of cranberries. Skewer the berries most of the way through onto toothpicks. Insert the berries all over the front and sides of the wreath base until the base is full. Add cones and ribbons to embellish if you like.

Swags are even easier to craft than wreaths, and make fabulous winter toppers for outside windows. To make a swag, simply lay two or three evergreen braches atop one another on each end with the branch ends meeting in the middle, making sure both sides are evenly full. Wire the branches together in the middle and at two or three more intervals down each side to make the swag sturdy. Add sprays of seasonal color by attaching lengths of Winterberry and Staff Vine, or tuck in pieces of Holly with berries attached on top of the evergreens. These swags are a festive natural touch with beautiful Christmas colors that can remain up all Winter long.

Hanging Ornaments

Bird friendly hanging ornaments are easy to make for the out of doors. Using a pine cone, peanut butter, bird seed and string, make easy bird feeders to hang from your trees. Cover the cone with the peanut butter, roll in bird seed until coated and attach a length of string or craft wire to the top for hanging. Dress up with small bows for more decoration if needed.

Another hanging feeder option, more suggestive of hanging Christmas tree ornaments, is to craft balls from apples and fruit. Birds and critters will probably welcome the fruits, strung and hanging from branches by themselves, or try covering with the peanut butter and bird seed mix. Another way to dress up fruits and feed the birds is to stick berries or seeds through with toothpicks and insert into the apple (think along the lines of the old orange-covered-with-cloves air freshener). Birds will first eat the seed, then the fruit after.

With a needle and about four to six inches of string, make hanging ornaments by stacking and stringing seeds, pods, or dried fruit. Alternate among the branches with hanging feeders or fruit ornaments.

Garlands

String a garland with treasures for feeding the birds much in the way of the hanging fruit and nut ornaments. With a long piece of string and a needle, string foods, fruit pieces or nuts in any pattern or random order (this is where an inexpensive trail mix is handy). If seeds are tough, use a heavy embroidery or darning needle. For smaller objects, you will need a thin needle to prevent breaking pieces as you string them for bird edible ornamentation.

Traditional popcorn and cranberry strings are nostalgic Christmas decorations, as well as decoration that will feed the birds. Simply string the two in any order or pattern. Use a thin thread and needle when stringing popcorn, as it breaks easily when pierced with a thick needle.

Drape strung garlands along tree branches and fences for food the birds will come back to time and again.

Water

As a final note, remember birds need water in the Winter, too; perhaps even more so than in the summer when ponds, puddles fountains and streams flow unhindered by cold and ice. To draw more birds and wildlife to your yard, provide a fresh bath of water daily.

As we all grow more environmentally conscious, we gain an appreciation of the impact of our eccentricities on the animals and birds around us. By using natural elements for Winter and holiday décor, we work in partnership with the nature that surrounds us, helping birds and other animals to find food and materials for building shelter, helping them through the cold Winters. As an added benefit, by bringing nature closer to our homes we are able to observe and appreciate these entertaining neighbors.

© Doityourself.com 2006