A Little Pumpkin Birdfeeder

This is going to be a really short blog, but I want to remember doing this.  Fall is a time for pumpkin everything.  We have pumpkin spice foods, trips to the pumpkin patch and the carving of Halloween jack-o-lanterns.  Fall is also a time for the weather to get cooler leaving the birds who don't migrate searching for food.  I feed the birds all year but in the fall I pick it up a bit.  The natural food isn't as plentiful.  This year I incorporated pumpkins and feeding the birds.  Our daughter grows pumpkins and a lot of squash.  Our grandson has a little farm stand where he sells some of these products.  I picked out two small less than perfect pumpkins for this project.

I cut the pumpkin in half.  I loosened the seeds but left most of them in the pumpkin.  I filled the cavity with some birdseed blend, peanuts and sunflower seeds.  I figured I would give the birds a choice as to what they want to eat.  My problem was two fold.  One was to place it where the squirrels couldn't reach it and the other was to figure out how to hang it.  I found the perfect solution.  It was the Baltimore Oriole jelly feeder.  I cut a circle out of the bottom of the pumpkin and placed it on the feeder tray.  This way water would drain away if it rained, it had a perch for the birds and it was secure.

The birds are loving it.  The cardinals, nuthatches, finches and bluejays have emptied it already.