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Birdie Potpourri
By Jessica Wilson
Years ago my mother had a mad love bird living in her home. My brother found it flying about the San Fernando Valley and presented it to her as a pet. The thing was crazy psychotic as many single love birds are wont to be, so my mother dubbed it Sid Vicious until one day she found a teeny tiny egg in her shoe. Turns out, this bird was a she and she rapidly became a manic nester. Sydney would shred any and all paper she came across and she would tug and pull loose threads from clothing, blankets, and towels. As an attempt to save her things from the rabid bird beak, my mom took to draping strands of ribbon and fabric near places where the bird chilled out. Here's my crafty take on making your own ball of birdie potpourri, which is an assortment of fibers and nest-building materials for your favorite birdie friend.You can also hang a few of these in the garden for those outdoor birdies. I've seen mourning doves and mocking birds fly away with my offerings. I've not seen a nest yet, but here's hoping.
Materials
Empty paper egg carton
Scissors
Hole punch
Assortment of fibers such as thin ribbons, twine, yarn, fabric, and even paper scraps
Directions
Step 1: Gather your supplies and get ready for some nesting. Using your scissors, cut away a section from your egg carton. You can turn one egg carton into 12 potpourri balls. Trim around the edge of the egg cup you just cut so that it has no unseemly pointy edges.
Step 2: Punch holes all over your cup with your hole punch. You want to punch as many as you can without completely shredding the cup.
Step 3: Gather your fibers and snip them up so that they are not longer than 8". You don't want your pet to accidentally swallow them, but you do want a variety of lengths so that your ball of birdie potpourri is pretty to look at. Gently thread various fibers through the holes you punched. You want to keep them as loose as possible to prevent your birdie from getting all tangled up. If the fibers are too packed and tight, this would be harmful to your birdie and we don't want that.
Step 4: Keep adding fibers until you are happy with the results, and hang the ball inside your bird's cage as close to the top or sides as possible. It is very important to prevent strangulation so keep the anchor line short. Once you're all set, allow your birdie to explore and see how she, or even he, likes it!
About the Author:
Jessica Wilson is most happily known as 'jek in the box' and spends most of her time crafting it up and taking pictures. She can often be found standing on benches over on Flickr and creating all sorts of kiddie crafts on her blog scrumdilly-do! She lives a life of scrumdillydilly and loves to share.
agree with the 2nd post.
gave my mom some wool waste from spinning for her birds, and one of then nearly lost her leg! be careful.
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A while back I left some cotton yarn out for birds in my back yard. Interestingly, the robins only took the green yarn and left the pink. It was otherwise identical.
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Having raised finches, I have to say that this is not a good idea as some of the fibers, (teeny-tiny), can wrap around toes, etc. and cause them to fall off! Let nature do it's own thing, and caged birds should only be provided with nesting material like grass or something sure to not have this effect....Stupid me thought it would be a great idea to provide fiber-fill to my nesting pair. I still feel guilty.......:(
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Please don't use bright ribbons and wools for wild birds - it will attract the attention of predators towards the nest.
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