After the slight disaster of the squirrel stealing our loo-roll bird feeders, I saw this idea at a local country park and had high hopes that they might stay put a little longer!
The bird feeders are simply made from hoop shaped cereal threaded onto pipe cleaners. I wouldn’t have thought of using cereal myself, but if it is good enough for Etherow Country Park, it is good enough for us!
I loved the idea of incorporating a threading and fine-motor activity into learning about wildlife! We have tried threading beads onto wooden skewers, and threading beads onto pipe cleaners so Annabelle enjoyed using a new medium.
Big Baby had a taste!
We hooked around one end of the pipe cleaner to keep all the cereal in place.
Busy threading
Ta dah! It’s like a bracelet!
We looped each pipe cleaner into a circle and then joined them together paper-chain style.
Ready for the birds.
Tasty!
We used an extra pipe cleaner to tie the bird feeder to a tree trunk and…it worked, the whole chain was still there once the cereals were all gone so we have been back and refilled it several times! The birds got stuck in once we were inside, and Annabelle enjoyed recording them all in her spotter’s book!
For any locals, Etherow is a great country park to visit and the newly re-vamped visitor’s centre has loads of activities for children. The cafe and visitor centre are run by Pure Innovations who are a group supporting people with disabilities and disadvantages – their teacakes and hot chocolates are perfect after a chilly walk!
Annabelle is so very inventive ,gets it from Stratford Grandad .
😆