With all the snow that’s already fallen this winter, the foods that birds can scavenge on their own are mostly covered. You can help them out by filling your bird feeder with purchased seed, but it’s more fun to make homemade bird treats. Some of these make great gifts for bird lovers as well.
The easiest treat is made by smearing peanut butter on a pine cone and rolling the cone in bird seed. Hang the cone on a tree branch or tuck it in the crook where two branches come together.
Suet, which is the fat trimmed from meat, can be purchased in the meat department at grocery stores. If you don’t see it out for sale, ask at the meat counter. Suet needs to be melted in a double boiler or slow cooker until it is mostly liquid for the following recipes.
* Use a cookie cutter to cut bell shapes from pieces of stale white bread. Dip the bells in melted suet, and then press them into birdseed. Poke a hole in the tops of the bells and push a cord through for hangers. When they harden hang them outside from a tree or shrub branch.
* Melt 1 cup suet and stir in 1 cup each of peanut butter, oats and cornmeal until evenly combined. Use a knife to press the mixture into the creases of a pine cone and then roll the cone in birdseed to cover evenly. Place the cone on a piece of wax paper until it hardens and then hang it outside.
* Cook 3 ½ cups of oatmeal. Stir in 1 lb. melted suet, and 18 oz. peanut butter. Add 3 ½ cups each cornmeal and cream of wheat. When cooled enough to hold together, shape into balls. Let harden and place the balls in a mesh onion bag and hang the bag in a tree.
* Use the same recipe as above, but use cookie cutters as molds. Place cookie cutters on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Spoon the mixture into the molds, lay a looped string into the mixture and press evenly down. Place in the refrigerator for several hours to harden before hanging outdoors.
* To make birdseed wreaths, grease 3 four-inch mini bundt pans. Boil 6 T. water in a microwave. Pour 2 T. cold water in a large mixing bowl and add a ¼ oz. package of unflavored gelatin. Allow it to stand for one minute and then add the boiling water. Stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Stir 2 cups bird seed into the mixture and combine thoroughly. Spoon the mixture into the bundt pans and refrigerate for at least five hours. Pop the wreaths out of the pans and tie them onto branches.
Birds may not immediately flock to your treats. Sometimes it takes them a few days to get accustomed to a new area before they feel it is safe to come close enough to sample your new offerings.
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