I hope you've all had a great New Year's! I don't know about you, but I am always so glad when the holidays are over. Life can become calmer and the house can get back to normal. We spent the whole day upstairs taking down holiday decorations, cleaning and organizing.
A few days ago the weather turned colder, and we knew we wanted to give our feathered friends a source of fresh, unfrozen water. Even with snow and ice water can be scarce in the winter.
Providing a heated bird baths give our backyard birds an advantage of not having to expel energy melting the snow.
We decided to make the heated bird bath out of things we already had on hand. It may not be pretty, but it works. We had this old file cabinet drawer, a thrift store metal cake pan and a cheap old lamp that attaches to a shelve or desk.
Using the cake pan as a template we cut a hole out a little smaller than the cake pan..we also cut a hole...
on the back side to allow the power cord to pass through.
We screwed the lamp to the side wall (by cord hole) and angled the light upward so that it would be shining on the bottom of the cake pan.
The cake pan was placed in the hole, and we screwed a dish on top to provide another food source.
The light stays on 24/7, and keeps the water melted.
They love it, and we love watching all the activity throughout the day, drinking, playing and bathing in it. They also have quick access to a quick bite to eat.
Their activity gives us so much pleasure throughout the day!
Savvy Southern Style
Common Ground
OMGosh Cathy this is such a wonderful idea. How sweet of you to think about the birds and provide for them a warm water bath. I bet you do see lots of action...it must be the hottest spot in town for those birdies. This would be a great way to teach our kids about different birds, upclose!!! Hope you had a wonderful holiday season and wishing you the absolute best in the new year!!!
XO Barbara
Shared this on my Facebook page!!
Who cares if this doesn't look "pretty" - it's absolutely awesome! I wish me and my hubby were inventive and creative like that. How wonderful of you to help the little birdies with water in the winter.
Great post Kathy. I'm so glad I found this post about your birds. I'm going to show this to my hubs so he can make one for our yard birds. Poor little things, how do they keep from freezing to death?
It's pretty cold here (west of Grand Junction, CO), was way below zero early this a.m., weather man said it was minus one in G.J. an hour ago so it's colder out where we live. Even our dog that loves the cold and snow isn't dallying outside on his potty runs now. He wants to come right back in.
I got him a coat but he proceeded to figure out how to get it off and tore it.
Hope you're enjoying your first week of 2013. By your pic I noticed you have quite a bit of snow also. We do too. In fact so much we're trying to figure out how we're going to get the decoration boxes out of the shed to put them away. I don't care to have to have decorations in my mud room for any longer than necessary. I'm done with it. ready to move on to whatever is next. We just have a single wide mfg. home and no place to store decorations for any length of time.
Sorry Cathy I spelled your name wrong on above comment.
What a great idea! I'm going to have to look around and see what I have in my stash to build one for our feathered friends. Thanks for the inspiration! Hugs, Leena
You are a true angel....What a softy. What a wonderful idea. Bet you made God smile. The birds have their own FLY-IN restaurant. Lol. Give Bo a hug from his friends in Maine.
Hugs
LisaRose
Cathy,
How very creative and super sweet to help take care of our feathered friends! Hope you're having a wonderful start to 2013.
Now who would think of a heated birdbath! That is extraordinary! The birds sure must love you very very much!
How "tweet" are you, Cathy? lol What a genius idea for your darling birds! We have heaters in both of our birdbaths and truly adore watching the birds bathe in them AND the squirrels drink from them. Cheap entertainment during these long cold days.
xoxo laurie
Great idea Cathy! We feed the birds but don't use our birdbaths in winter.
This is a great DIY solution! Hope the birds get the word out to their feathered friends. (Stopping by from Kathe with an E blog hop!_
I think this is a really creative and great idea to help out our feathered friends during the winter. I feed the birds but haven't put out a water source for them. How cold does it get where you live? We can get down to -18 C. or zero F here for days at a time and our temperatures seldom are above freezing until late February. Blessings, Pamela
That is so brilliant Cathy!!! Amazing job -
XXX
A wonderful thought for our feathered friends.
Thanks for sharing.
Michele
What a kind and wonderful idea! The birdies will be so thankful! Thanks for sharing