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There are many ways to enjoy the spectacle of bird watching. You can attract the birds to your garden using different bird feeders filled with seeds or even nectar and there's also the possibility of having a bird bath in your garden. This provides your visiting feathered friends the opportunity to splash about and get themselves nice and clean. The other option that you have is to provide a bird table with food placed on it.

You can of course go to your nearest pet store and buy the latest thing in bird tables or you can try your hand at making your very own bird table. This is a very easy project to do and the satisfaction that you'll gain as you look at the many birds will definitely be worth your effort.

You'll need a strong pole to support the table and any visiting birds, a large flat piece of wood to act as the table, and some thin long strips to place along the edges of the table. The pole should be about 1.5 meters high. This will keep your birds safe from any prowling hungry cats. You should attach the thin strips of wood to the edges of your table. These strips need to be 2 inches high and there should be a small gap between them and the table. This design feature will let any rain water drain off of the table. You can attach the strips of wood to the table before you nail it to the pole or afterwards. Just make sure that the pole and the table are firmly attached to each other.

Before you hammer the bird table into the ground, check out the best place for your new table. This site should have some shrubs nearby so they can flee from any Sparrow Hawks in the vicinity, although there shouldn't be too much ground cover as cats can hide there.

Once your new bird table is firmly in the ground you can put out a variety of foods for the birds to enjoy. They'll like to eat unsalted peanuts, fresh coconuts, fats like suet, dripping, meat fat and bacon rind. Cheese, stale cakes, biscuits and pastry with interesting fillings should tempt their taste buds too. Besides these types of food, birds enjoy fruits, apples, dried fruits, sunflower seeds, bread and some wild bird seed food.

This is a great way to see different birds, but you'll also need to make sure that all this food doesn't get the attention of any squirrels who like any kind of free food. If however, you do manage to attract the attention of a squirrel, and it's bound to happen, you have two choices: fight them or join them. Since fighting them requires too much energy joining them is the simplest course of action and placing enough food on the bird table for them as well, will ensure that you have hours of added fun watching their antics along with those of the birds.