Make a bird feeder from a recycled plastic bottle

There is a particular pleasure in watching a blue tit swing on a feeder you made yourself from something that was heading for the recycling bin. An empty plastic bottle takes about ten minutes to transform, costs nothing, and shrugs off the British weather far better than many shop-bought feeders. It keeps seed dry, wipes clean, and when it finally cracks you simply make another.

Why a Plastic Bottle Works So Well

Wooden feeders swell, split and grow mould; cheap plastic ones go brittle in a hard frost. A sturdy drinks bottle is rigid enough to hold its shape, light enough to hang from a slender branch, and completely waterproof once the cap is on. Seed stays dry and free-flowing, which matters enormously in a wet winter — damp seed turns mouldy fast, and mouldy seed is genuinely bad for birds.

There is a sustainability argument here too, though a modest one: you are extending the useful life of a bottle by a year or more before it is recycled, and you are not buying something new that has travelled halfway round the world to reach you. Best of all, it is a project children can help with, and a feeder they helped make is one they will want to keep filled.

What You Will Need

• A clean 2-litre drinks bottle with its cap
• Sharp scissors or a craft knife, and a chopping board to work on
• A metal skewer, or a drill with a 5mm bit, for the small holes
• Two bamboo skewers or short lengths of 6mm dowel for perches
• Garden wire or strong twine for hanging
• Fine sandpaper or a nail file
• A small funnel, or a rolled sheet of paper
• Bird seed — sunflower hearts, niger seed, or a good quality mixed seed

Cleaning and Preparing the Bottle

Wash the bottle inside and out with hot, soapy water, rinse it thoroughly, and leave it upside down to dry. Peel off the label and any sticky residue; a little cooking oil rubbed on will shift the worst of it, followed by another wash. This step is not just cosmetic. Sugary drink residue ferments and grows mould, and that is precisely what you do not want sitting among your seed.

Leave the cap on. It keeps the rain out and stops the seed pouring through in a rush, so the birds empty the feeder gradually rather than in one greedy afternoon.

Cutting the Feeding Ports and Fitting Perches

Work on a board, keep your fingers well behind the blade, and take it slowly. Mark a perch hole about 4cm up from the base of the bottle, then make it with the skewer or the drill.

• Make a second perch hole directly opposite the first, so the skewer passes straight through the bottle.
• Measure about 3cm above each perch hole and cut a feeding port roughly 4cm across — big enough for a sparrow, small enough to discourage starlings and pigeons.
• Repeat on the opposite side, and if the bottle is wide, add a second pair at right angles so several birds can feed at once.
• Push a skewer through the perch holes, trim it so about 4cm sticks out either side, and repeat with the second skewer.
• Sand every cut edge until it feels smooth. Rough plastic can graze a bird's feet and tongue.

Finally, prick three or four 2mm drainage holes in the base. They are far too small for sunflower hearts to fall through, but they let condensation escape.

Filling, Hanging and Siting

Use your funnel to fill the bottle through the neck, screw the cap on firmly, and give it a gentle shake so the seed settles down towards the ports. Hang it with garden wire or twine looped around the neck beneath the cap, or by piercing two small holes near the top and threading the twine through.

Where you put it matters more than how it looks. Aim for 1.5 to 2 metres above the ground, on a branch thin enough that a cat or squirrel would struggle to reach along it. Keep the feeder either within a metre of a window or more than three metres away, which is the spacing that best reduces the risk of birds striking the glass. A little cover nearby gives birds somewhere to retreat to, but not so much that a predator can lurk unseen.

Keeping It Clean and the Birds Safe

Clean the feeder every fortnight — more often in mild, damp weather — with hot soapy water and a bottle brush. Rinse it well and let it dry in the sun before refilling. Never top up over old, clumped or damp seed; tip the lot out and start again. A shallow dish of fresh water nearby is a welcome addition, with a stone in it so birds can grip.

Avoid bread, salted snacks, cooked leftovers and anything mouldy. If you notice a bird looking fluffed up and unwell, take your feeders down for a fortnight, clean everything thoroughly, and begin again. It is the single most useful thing you can do to slow the spread of disease at a busy feeding station.

Then make a cup of tea, sit somewhere you can see the feeder, and do nothing at all for ten minutes. The birds will come.