The other day I visited with a friend who has a series of bird feeders on the trees in the front yard. Essentially wooden boxes nailed about chest height, she always has lots of dinky birds flitting in and out. “Dinky bird” is what Paul calls just about any little bird that he doesn’t know the name of – which is most of them.
I want dozens of dinky birds flitting in and out of my front yard too! So, I drew up a rough design for a little wooden feeder, gathered up some scrap wood, and built a couple of these little bird feeders.
It was not until writing this post that I realized I should have asked her what she’s feeding them. But, build it and they will come, right?
I used scraps of soffit material for the bottom to allow rainwater to drain out.
Once I had the feeders hanging, I asked Paul if he would draw plans for these in CAD so I could share the plans. I may be able to draw bird patterns, but I am geometrically challenged. Anything that requires specific measurements and right angles is out of my league. The garage is now littered with unusable scraps of wood leftover from my goofs while building these. Furthermore, despite using the same template for each feeder, the two are not the same size! Go figure.
Paul took the charge seriously. My simple little bird feeder has a set of plans 8 pages long!
Click here to download the Dinky Bird Feeder plans. With Paul’s plans I’m sure you’re attempt will go much smoother than did mine!
Oh, it looks very interesting!!! We have a lot of these “Dinky-Birds” too.
Greatings Ariane from Vienna.
Have you tried using window screen for the bottom? I wonder if that would work well?
I’m sure it would. Screen was my first thought, but I didn’t have any kicking around so I used what was handy.
My son chose your design to ‘copy’. We both think it’s absolutely beautiful! He wants to make some of these to sell to a few local people. He wants to try to earn a few pennies…
Would you be okay with that?
I am using these dimensions to build this myself. Do I need to have the thing at the bottom for rain water or will it be ok without it?
You don’t have to use what I did for the bottom. If you use wood for the bottom, I would drill some small holes for water drainage. A piece of metal screen tacked to the bottom would serve the same purpose if you want to go that direction!