For the winter: make bird seed yourself

Sunflower seeds are a healthy and nutritious ingredient in birdseed – Image: Shutterstock / JGade

Wild birds find it difficult to find enough food in winter and to strengthen themselves for the cold days. If you want to treat them to a treat, nutritious, high-fat food is a great idea and quick to make.

Ingredients for birdseed

For this recipe you first need beef tallow or vegetable fat and some cooking oil. You can also add sunflower seeds, chopped nut kernels, oatmeal, raisins and bran to your liking to provide enough nutrients for the wild birds in your garden. Now you need half a coconut shell in which you can later put the mixture that you can now prepare as follows.

Preparation of the fatty winter dish

Heat the fat in a saucepan until it melts, then add a little vegetable oil so the birdseed isn’t too hard later. Take the melted mass off the stove and stir in the grain mix. The sunflower seeds should make up a large part of about two thirds of the ingredients, because they are particularly good for the birdie thanks to their high oil content.

Then pour the mixture into the coconut shell, let it harden and find a nice, shady spot outside where the birds can easily land and feed. From time to time you should check whether the feeding area is still nice and clean and the fat in the shell has not become too brittle or rancid.

Variation for attachment to branches

You can also pour the mass described above into empty, washed-out yoghurt pots. Let them get cold and hard in there and later remove them from the cups by briefly immersing them in hot water. Then simply stick the finished bird seed on the branches of a tree and you will soon be able to watch the first wild birds feeding on it.

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