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Kingfisher HBT Hanging Bird Table
by broxi3781
My son saw a beautiful bird feeder on a pole at a neighbours house. Just why she wants a bird feeder when she has 20 cats is beyond me, but he had been begging for one ever since. However, the neighbour with the cats lives in a safer part of the estate. We can not put anything like this in our front garden and our back garden is ... completely enclosed with high fences and fairly dark. I decided to buy this thinking we might be able to suspend a bracket from the back of the house to hang the house up. My husband however, thought it would swing about and be smashed with high winds, and ended up putting it on a pole, which was then attached to a wooden fence making this high enough that hopefully passing birds might spot it.
This comes flat packed and does require assembly. Assembly was very quick, at least once a few replacements were made and even my boys were able to help, but there were a number of issues. The first was that according to Amazon's description this is " Beautifully coloured in antique pine stain". The photo on Amazon also appears to be of stained wood. When this arrived, the wood was completely bare and untreated, and no stain was included in the kit. The next problem was that one of the four pillars which support the roof had a very large thick split running over halfway up the pole. It would be impossible for a screw to hold in this - in fact it was wide enough that you could slide a screw in without a screwdriver, but it would not stay there. My husband made a new support from a bit of broom pole. Finally, the screws were of a very soft aluminium and could not be used with an electric screw driver as the heads just stripped in no time. My husband replaced these with a better grade of screw.
My sons were dying to put this up. They had bird seed ready and waiting and simply could not wait until Daddy got around to going to hardware store to buy wood stain or treatment. An untreated roof would be ruined in not time with our weather though, so my husband covered it with duct tape. It isn't teh prettiest solution, but it will waterproof the table. At last it was ready to hang and my sons happily climbed up and filled this with bird seed. All we had to do now was wait for the birds and we've done just that. We've waited and waited and waited.
My husband insists it isn't the right time of year for birds. I say rubbish I've fed birds year round before, I hear birds in the morning and see them flying about now and then. It is possible they haven't spotted this and we are still quite hopeful that they will. But my strawberry baskets are only about a foot away and they never had trouble spotting them. I did have a plastic feeder on the fence post once which was always well recieved but ended up with water in the feeding spout and was very difficult to refill.
I've read that the small size of this might be an issue. The feeding tray itself is 21 cm x 21 cm, and the height to the roof inside the feeding area is 15cm. Still that leaves an opening of 21cm x 15 cm for the birds to fly through, which I would think would be plenty for small birds like robins and little song birds.
I won't fault the bird feeder for the lack of birds. I've noticed that we have fewer birds here every year anyway - at least some of this likely due to an over population of cats, although we don't get too many around the garden due to the dog. The dog may be frightening the birds away as well, although she has no interest in birds, and could not reach this even if she did want to. She is also indoors a fair amount of the time. And of course I am still very hopeful that the birds will eventually find this.
I didn't want to invest too much at first, until we had a chance to see if it was going to be used, and with a price of £6.95 - I do think this is a good bargain. I'm sure I could have contacted the company for a replacement of the broken part, but the boys did not want to wait. Still my overall impression of this is that it is cheap to buy and cheaply made. My husband wanted to buy stain or wood treatment and paint this later, but it really doesn't quite seem worth the money. I also think if the birds ever get using it - it will be difficult to paint once it has a coating of bird poo, and of course it would have to be taken down for a few days, meaning they might stop coming. I think I'll just wait and see how this goes, if it does end up attracting birds, I should be able to get one season out of it. Then I can replace it with a better design, or even another cheaper one like this, but let the boys paint it first. If the birds never do use this, at least I won't have wasted too much money to find out.
I'm giving this feeder 3 stars. On the one hand it is cheap, fairly easy to assemble. Once my husband had cut another part to replace the damaged pillar, tt only took about 15 - 20 minutes with two children helping - which means it would only have been a few minutes without children. I do feel being advertised as stained wood when it was not must cost it a star, and considering the broken part, and the overall quality it would never have been a five star rating to begin with. If however,, they had simply advertised this as bare untreated wood, I would have bought it any way - I just would have bought stain at the same time, and I would have given this 4 stars.
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Gardman Wild Bird Large Black Steel Seed Feeder
by jjrose
I live with a flat mate who just loves birds. It was her who got me into feeding birds at our university flat and I managed to bring the same good habit back home. I saw this Gardman Wild Bird Large Black Steel Seed Feeder
whilst I was browsing on Amazon and I thought this could make a good addition to our garden back home. My ... parents love the idea of feeding the wild birds and since I have Amazon vouchers, I thought I will use the money to do something good.
The Gardman Wild Bird Large Black Steel Seed Feeder we have in our garden is the larger size one that can hold up to 650 grams of seed mix according to the manufacturer guide. I paid about £10 for one bird feeder and I think it was a very reasonable price. They do some in a smaller size 250 grams of seed, and the smaller one is retailed for £7.99. So, I went for the bigger and more economical one.
The bird feeder has black base and cap with transparent feeding tube, which makes it easier to see if the seed mix is running low or not. At the base is the two curved steel bars for the birds to perch on whilst feeding. The base and the top are easily detachable for cleaning, although I must admit it does not require regular cleaning. According to the guide, the feeder is coated to resist any bacterial growth, which is a plus for any outdoor equipment.
Our garden is quite small and is surrounded by houses around the periphery. So there are hardly any trees for birds to make a nest. So, most of the birds that feed from from this are mostly wild birds. Sparrows and pigeons are the most common ones I have seen so far. The bird feeder has a large capacity of 650 grams, so once I have top it up, I don't need re fill it until 2 weeks later usually. But if it quite a cold season where it's hard for birds to find food, it does need to be topped up regularly. I do find it quite peaceful to watch birds feed from it in the garden.
As for the durability of the product, we've had it for about 6 months now and it is still functioning well. Frequent cleaning helps of course. I have had no problems leaving the feeder out in the mercy of the British weather, so it is an advantage in such frisky climate like in the UK.
Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase and it is very nice consequences. If you like to give it a go, the smaller one is recommended, especially for suburban gardens.
Thank you for reading and reviewing. :) x
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Gardman Deluxe Feeding Station
by SpiderDreams
Our last house had a very small garden, overwhelmed with hedges. With not much space to play with, when it came to feeding the birds I needed something that could deal with everything I wanted kin one spot - hangers / bird bath etc.
This bird feeding station was perfect!
[Appearance]
It stands at approximately ... 226 cm, a black, stainless steel pole (25.5mm dia) that crowns at the top with four inwardly curved hooks. Down the length of the pole are additional hooks and holes to allow other hangers to be added.
It comes with a round metal ring that slots into a metal "pocket". This ring is the support for a 'round plastic bird bath. Additionally there is also a wire mesh tray (apprx 22.5 cm dia) that also slots into a metal "pocket" and is good for things like mealworms where if it rains the tray doesn't fill up with water.
At the end of this feeder, the pole tapers to a point for driving into the ground. Once the feeder is pushed into the ground, the height above ground is approximately 185 cm.
[Assembly]
Not too difficult, the poles slot together and the joins are covered with a special rubber "sock" that hides the joins and stops water etc getting into it that could cause rust.
It is best to leave the pointed ended unattached when assembling. Instead decide where you want your feeder to be (away from walls and areas that cats can climb on and thus fling themselves at the birds!) and then place the pointy bottom on the ground, use a piece of work on top and wallop it with a rubber mallet.
(Believe me doing it that way is a LOT either than putting the whole thing together then trying to drive it deep enough into the earth)
When it's in deep enough, put the fully assembled pole into it, making sure it's not skewed. Depending on how many birds you get (eg lots of heavy wood pigeons you might want to add some bricks around the bottom for security). We did this, after several crows and pigeons ventured onto the feeder and all sat on the same side!
You can get a stand for it, where there is a large round metal "foot" that means it can be stood on a patio or stone area - anywhere you couldn't pierce the ground with the point. However this can mean you have a lot of bird "mess" on your patio. So be warned.
[Feeders]
The feeder station can take hanging feeders on the top hooks, I like that there are four as it gives you an option for different ones such as suet ball holders, domed holders, caged holders that only allow small birds in etc
Further down is a single hook. This can be used for a number of things but I think was designed for holding the barley twist fat snax hanger hook. This is a long metal pole with several small hooks coming from it which netted suet balls can be individually hooked on. I personally do not use this as I have found birds can get their little feet caught in the netting. Instead I strip any netting off and hang them in a designated cage feeder at the top.
Instead we use the single hook to hang wire spirals full of "bedding" during nesting season or sometimes a feeder full of peanuts.
[Birdbath]
The bird bath is a white plastic dish, stepped and not too deep. It can be good, however with feeders just above it gets dirty VERY quickly and often has seed/mealworms cast into it from above. If can be used as a seed tray instead, if you decide that a birdbath is getting too grubby.
[Cleaning / Weathering]
The pole itself never really gets that messy. However be aware that wherever you stand it, there will be a lot of cast off and bird mess on the floor around it, so in a lawn is best where it can fertilise the grass. The bird bath and mesh tray can be easily removed and cleaned (hot soapy water / special bird cleaner - after all disease in birds is often spread via dirty feeders) The pole can be rubbed down with a rag and hot water though you are not likely to need to do that very often.
We have had ours for over 6 years, and have moved house (always taken it). At the present location it stands in the centre of our very open garden so is often hit by winds. It barely moves (though the feeders will sometimes unhook themselves in very strong winds) and it weathers fine, have not even seen any rust on it and it has been out in all weathers!
[Use]
Since getting it, this station has fed a variety of birds large and small from tits and sparrows to jackdaws, woodpeckers and rooks.
With the exception of the slight shift due to excessive pigeon weight all on one side, this feeder station has stood up against an array of birds in huge flocks (32 starlings on at once!) It allows us to cater to large and small birds and to make sure everyone is fed fairly (hanger hooks allow for our dome feeder than can be adjusted so only little birds can get in).
This feeder station has been a real boon when doing the RSPB's January Big Garden Bird Watch as they all use it and are easily drawn to it with all the different foods we supply.
[Price]
The prices I have seen are from £16.99 (Amazon) up to £29.99 (possibly even higher). However unless you are getting a lot of extras, you really don't have to spend too much. We got ours from a Gardening catalogue at £18.99 and it's been going strong for 6 years.
[Summary]
An excellent purchase and if our garden was bigger I'd have another. Highly recommended to those who like watching/feeding garden birds
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