Easy Backyard Birdbath

I will admit it, before we moved to Australia 2 years ago, I hated birds. Not really sure why, but I did. Then we relocated and I became a huge fan. The birds in AU are amazing! Nothing like you see here (at least that is what I thought). So, now that we are back in the States, I am bound and determined to find as many different kinds of birds in our own backyard as we can.  We already have 3 different bird feeders in our yard and have been experimenting with different kinds of seeds to see what we can attract.  My eldest and I had been talking for quite a while about getting a bird bath for our yard, but all the ones we saw (and liked) were out of our budget.  This past weekend, I decided that we would create our own bird bath and do it on a small budget.

How to Create an Easy Backyard Bird Bath on Budget

We took a trip to Home Depot and spend a good deal of time looking around. They did not have any real bird baths on hand so we grabbed a shallow plastic container (see photo below) meant for water features thinking that it would work. It is not the prettiest thing so we also picked out some pretty flowers to hide the plastic and got a bag of river pebbles to line the container.  We spent about $25 give or take. Not too bad since the real baths were 3 times that much!

We took all our supplies home and set to work.  First we had to pick just the right spot.  We decided that a sunny spot right near our feeders that was somewhat hidden by some trees and bushes would be best.  Here is our before picture:

We cleared away the weeds and leveled the soil.  We dug a shallow hole and placed the container inside. We lined the container with the river rocks and also placed some larger rocks from our yard around the outside of the container to keep it in place.  Once the bath was ready, we planted the flowers we purchased around it to make it look attractive and to hide the plastic container.

Finally, our bird bath was complete and ready to fill.  My eldest gladly filled it with water and we stepped back to admire our work.   Here is what it looked like when we were finished.

We spent lots of time yesterday watching and waiting for a bird to stop by and check it out, but had no luck.  This afternoon, however, while we were sitting on our porch, a crossbill inched its way toward the bath, hopped on the edge, dipped its beak into the water and then flew away.

Yahoo!  The bird bath has been discovered and is ready for more visitors!

What have you added to your backyard lately?

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