How to make a natural pine cone bird feeder.

​At the moment home working has become the norm. Sarah our custodian at Pembrokeshire Natural Burial Ground has also taken on the task of homeschooling with her son Jesse. Part of his homework was making a bird feeder and he decided that they wanted to do something natural. They have shared with us, ‘how they made a natural pine cone bird feeder’.

‘As part of Jesse’s school work we had to make a bird feeder. This could be any type of bird feeder, but Jesse is very environmentally aware. This has partly been to do with the natural burial ground as he understands the reasons why we wanted to offer a green burial ground. He has been an important part of our journey establishing the natural burial ground. This included helping me plant a new hedgerow, scattering wildflower seeds and building his bug hotel. He is very passionate about nature and if he can do something to help the environment he is happy. After researching natural bird feeders with his nanny, he found out he could make a natural pine cone bird feeder. We are very lucky to have a fantastic Conifer on one of our nearby walks.

Foraging for Pine Cones

First, we went foraging for some fallen pine cones and came back with some wonderful cones that we dried out. If you place your pine cones near the radiator or a fire that you are using to heat your house this will open up the pine cones. This makes them much easier to fill and offers great little pews for the birds to sit and hold onto.

The messy bit

Once they had opened up we took a pine cone and started making our bird feeder. First, we attached some recycled biodegradable string. We had read it was a good idea to do this at the start as making the bird feeder can get messy. Jesse filled the inside of the pine cone with some fat we had saved using a spoon and a butter knife until he had covered it all. We read that lard and peanut butter works just as well if you are thinking about doing this yourself.

We chose to cover the bird feeder with a mix of rolled oats, a favourite for the Robins Jesse loves watching. Then added in some pine nuts we had leftover, and some wild bird seed. First Jesse mixed these up in a bowl. He started by rolling his pine cone in the mix, it did get messy but he had lots of fun. Then he sprinkled the mix onto any areas he had missed.

Our finished product

This was the final result. We are going to hang it in our garden for our birds to enjoy. It’s a really simple, fun way to make a natural bird feeder. We will continue to use these now we know how easy it is to do.’

We even had a few bird feeders left over that we put outside the meadow so that others could enjoy feeding their birds too.

“I loved making it, it was really good, a bit messy, but I like my new bird feeder a lot, I want to see the birds on it.” – Jesse