DIY Wild Bird Habitat Projects - Bird Pond, Stream, Dripper, Baths, & Puddle
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- Oops! Bird at @11:25 is a female Summer Tanager, not Scarlet Tanager. That’s what I get for editing late at night 😄
This one is a little different from the regular Sunday Morning Birds episodes. It's review of last year's water feature projects and, hopefully, a bit of inspiration for anyone who would like to try similar projects. I was very happy with how the birds responded to all the new water offerings this year. The big puddle seems particularly promising now that there's a consistent supply of water down there. The open area it's in is so different from the more densely wooded land closer to the house. And the woodland stream has been a big hit with the birds.
It’s fun to see how wildlife interacts with even the smallest puddles, ponds, and fountains. Although I’d love to have enough land to build a big wildlife pond, I’m learning that small watering holes can make a difference, particularly if you have multiples in different shapes, sizes and locations. I’ve seen everything from butterflies to bobcats benefit. So cool!
I’m ready for spring! But ... they're forecasting snow here for us on Monday! I do enjoy seeing the snow, though. I just don't want it to stay around for too long.
Thanks for watching! Stay safe and there and I'll see you next week!
Some of the items I use in my projects (pumps, liner, filter boxes, etc) are available through the Warbler Ridge Storefront at Amazon.com (I'm an Amazon affiliate and I earn a commission from purchases you make through my storefront or links I provide - I appreciate the support!) Here's the link to my storefront! www.amazon.com/shop/warbler_r...
Note: Everything in the video was filmed in my hillside prooerty in eastern Tennessee. I use GoPro to film the birds. Some older GoPro Hero Blacks that I bought second hand.
Note anout the size of my projects: Everything I do is small in scale. I do this for several reasons It keeps costs down, allows me to build projects myself, and - most importantly - little birds don’t need big water features If you watch songbirds out on their own in the landscape, they gravitate toward puddles . And, really, small is just so much easier, particularly if you have rocky soil like I have here. If I had more land and easier to dig soil, though, I’d love to add a bigger wildlife pond. I love what Stefano Ianiro has built on his property: • I Built a Wildlife Pon...
#birds #wildlife #nature #birding #birdpond #birdbath #habitat
00:00 Bird Habitat Projects intro
00:39 Mini bird pond and woodland stream
01:28 Juvenile Hairy Woodpecker at the mini pond
02:40 Replacing the mini pond with larger bird pond and stream
04:05 Fall migration birds at woodland stream
05:23 Pileated Woodpecker pair at woodland stream
07:07 Easy bird water dripper
10:23 Working on the bird pond
12:53 Making a puddle for the birds
If you enjoy bird videos with lots of nice close up views of the birds, or if you’re interested in creating a backyard habitat with wildlife-friendly water features and landscaping, subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications so you don’t miss any new videos. New Sunday Morning Birds videos are posted each week on Sunday mornings at 6am eastern time. The Sunday Morning Birds videos follow bird activity here at my Tennessee property throughout the year. We have lots of year-round birds but our most active and exciting times of year are spring and fall migration. Summer can be pretty wonderful too. The number and variety of summer resident birds keeps growing! When there are a lot of nice birds around, I sometimes post extra videos during the week - so make sure you have those notifications turned on! 
Животные
Hi everyone! A question I get a lot is “How do you keep the water clean?” Two things help keep the water clean. First is frequent partial water changes. The bird ponds lose a lot of water to evaporation and to birds splashing (and carrying water off with them when they fly away soaking wet). So, I top them off with fresh water just about every day (I don’t have to do this if we get enough rain). While I’m refilling, I spray down the pebbles to wash away any accumulated dirt. The pools have a low spot that allows the excess, dirty, water to flow out and into the gardens. The second thing is mechanical and/or biological filtration. I use filtering based on what people use for fish ponds. On the main bird pond - the one with the water fall flowing over the rocks and into the bathing pool - the pump is in an open water reservoir beyond the bathing pool (basically a small fish pond with no fish) and the pump is in a filter box that helps clean the water. It’s then pumped up to a waterfall filter that further cleans the water. You can find both of these types of filters anywhere that sells fish pond supplies. The woodland stream uses a more natural filtration system in which the bed of pebbles that the pump is buried under serves as a biological filter. Good bacteria and other organisms naturally build up in the stone bed and clean the water. Drawing water down through the bed of pebbles also helps trap sediments. This is based on the bog filter or wetlands filters used for fish ponds. There are a lot of good videos on RUclips about how bog filters work. A channel called OzPonds has some of the best. The puddles doesn’t have filtration because it dries out between rains or refills with the hose, so the water in that is always fresh, and the pool bed there gets baked in the sun between refills. Hope this helps!
I'm jealous of those birds getting to play in these awesome water features
They do seem to enjoy themselves 🙂
I could watch this all day!
Thanks for watching!
I’m so glad I found you‼️ My home & Town was burnt to the ground 5.5 yrs ago & I’m starting over. You have done exactly what I want to do. Your video has made my plans so much easier.❤️
Magnificent!
Thank you!
love that you showed a simple plate. That's all it takes to get started.
Yes, the birds just want clean, fresh water. They don’t care about fancy. 🙂
I have just found two of your videos. They are delightful and informative. I really appreciate them and have learned from them.
Hello and thank you, that’s great to hear!
Just amazing and peaceful! It was worth all of your effort
Thank you so much!
Thank you for showing all your experience! I'm expanding my dishes of water and this is sooo helpful.
Glad it was helpful! Good luck with your projects, I’m sure your birds will appreciate it 🙂
Good job! I had a flock of Waxwings visit my birdbath last year and they came back this year, and found the birdbath in the new location. I figured they were migrating because they only came once each time.
Neat! Waxwings are such beautiful birds!
A Pileated Woodpecker! I've never seen one in person. What a special place you have made for the birds, and our, enjoyment.
Having the Pileated Woodpeckers visit was a real treat! I hear them often in the woods but rarely get a good look at them. Thanks for watching!
I just found your channel. This video makes me very happy and inspires me. Thank you for sharing!
Aww! That’s really nice to hear. Thank you and welcome to the channel! I post a new video every Sunday morning with new bird video footage from the previous week.
@@WarblerRidge I’m starting from the very beginning, listening (and watching 🤫) while I’m working!
😄👍🤫
What a beautiful spot you have there, thank you for sharing, subscribed.
Thank you and welcome to the channel!
Thank you for doing so much for wildlife, especially the birds, my favorite critter. Thank you for filming, your videos are so refreshing.
Thank you. The birds are by favorite critters too. Everyone else gets a supporting character roll 😄
What a lovely peaceful place you have. Thanks for the ideas for a natural water hole for the birds
Thank you for watching and I hope there were some ideas you can use.
Thank you! Your ponds and their visitors are a delight. I was concerned when there was no video last Sunday, so was doubly glad to see this.
I started working in this one for last week but these compilation videos with lots of clips take so much longer to put together. I underestimated the time it would take and didn’t get finished in time. I had fun with it, though and glad you enjoyed watching!
I wish more people cared about wildlife. Most seem to only think of their dogs and cats running loose is being a good owner; but in fact, it is pure heck on wild birds and wildlife, particularly nestling birds. Simply selfish irresponsible behavior.
Thanks so much for sharing! I loved seeing all your bird visitors. This is what I want to do at our home. Thanks for the great ideas. Just subscribed!
Thank you and welcome to the channel! Watch for a new Sunday Morning Birds video each week at 6am.
So awesome. I’m in Australia on the east coast on a little island. We have bird life galore here. Mostly large ones like lorikeets,cockatoo, kookaburra,corellas,and then even bigger ones like ibis forest pheasant and the island is full of curlews. I have a family nesting in my backyard at the moment. They are mainly ground birds but can fly. The curlews mainly are active at night and are quite load when they get going. Visitors find it hard to sleep here sometimes. I never knew how much I love birds until I bought this beautiful island property.
Thankyou for some wonderful ideas for water xxx
Your island sounds like a magical place! Thanks for watching and commenting, I appreciate it 🙂
Very nice projects. If you are looking for more work the water in the large pond might be made to last longer by making a large reservoir and then using a solar pump to circulate the water from the reservoir to the pond with the excess making it's way back to the reservoir. With the large area of the pond and surrounding rocked area the reservoir should fill quickly when it rains. If you wanted to complicate it a bit more a float switch could be added to shut off the pump when the reservoir gets low.
All good ideas, and I know for a lot of people it’s fun to figure things out (and I respect and appreciate that) but I like to keep things simple. And I don’t mind topping off the water every day or two. It’s part of my routine and it provides some nice quiet time in the garden 🙂
I’m just dying over this!!!! It’s wonderful. I’m going to build one.
You should! Your birds will be grateful 🙂
New subscriber and longtime bird friend. Thanks
Hello! Thanks for watching and welcome to the channel!
The birds obviously like it all. Great work!
Thanks!
Very cool! Makes me anxious for Spring here in Ohio!!!
Thanks! I’m ready for spring too. But, there’s snow headed our way this week, so I guess I’ll have to wait a bit ❄️☃️😄
You are such an inspiration, I love learning how to make "happy" Places for the birds, thank you !!!
Aww, thank you! That is so nice to hear.
Me too I love robins 😁 really enjoying your posts thank you
I would be so happy if I could convince some robins to stay for the summer 🙂 Thanks for watching and leaving a comment. It’s always nice to hear from viewers.
Very fun to see the BTS!
Okay, I’m stumped! BTS?
It's awesome! I'm glad you finally got your robins. I usually have robins in my front yard, with no feeders or anything. I saw my first robin under my feeders a month or two ago. It wasn't there for the seed, but I'm glad I saw it. I want to do a water feature now. 🙂 Thanks for this video!!
You should definitely do a water feature! Even a tiny one makes a bid difference. And I’m jealous of your robins 🙂 I think my soil is just too rocky for them. Makes it difficult for them to dig up worms
Inspiring!
Love ur videos. Love seeing the birds and how you made it from beginning to end. Your videos are clear and have good quality. What camera are you using?
Thank you! I have several older GoPro cameras (GoPro Hero 5 Black) that I use to film the birds. I like how portable they are and being waterproof is a big plus 🙂 Thanks for watching!
You are welcome. Thanks for creating, making and sharing your creations. They are very inspiring and enlightening.😘
You've inspired me to build a mini pond in my yard, thank you! Do I need to worry about the pump freezing?
It depends on where you live. If your winters are long and cold, you might want to remove the pump in the winter. I would worry that pressure from the ice could crack the pump. In my part of Tennessee, the water in my bird ponds only freezes solid a few times a year, so just unplug the pump during cold spells and start it back up when it warms up. For me, the biggest problem is making sure the ponds don’t run dry during the warm season. I killed a pump that way one year. Between evaporation and birds splashing water out of the pools, I have to top everything off with a gallon or two every day. Good luck with your pond! They’re a lot of fun to build and I’m sure your birds will love it.
That is some great advice. Thank you so much for sharing and for the good luck, I'm excited to see it come to fruition!@@WarblerRidge
This is all so inspiring! I'm in awe of all the amazing birds. Those warblers--wow! Thank you for the great footage and the labeling. I'm learning so much. I love how naturalistic the stone formations are.
Where are you located? I'm going to share with my local native gardening group and FB group in S-central PA. Saw a Cape May warbler today (May 10) and hoping there might be more variety nearby. Thank you!
@@FartherTogether Thank you! Inspiring is good! There’s so much we can do to help the birds and other wildlife around us. Even small things make a big difference over time. I’m located on a wooded hillside in the eastern portion of Tennessee. North of Knoxville and near Norris Lake (one of the big TVA flood control/power generation reservoirs). Thank you for sharing the videos. I appreciate that and very much like the idea of being a part of the larger community of native gardening and backyard habitat folks out there.
@@FartherTogether oh, and congratulations on the Cape May Warbler! It’s been a slow spring for warblers here. We’ve had some nasty storm front that I think are either slowing them down or sending them in a different direction. But the Merlin app thought it heard a Black-throated Green this morning, so there may still be more coming through.
Hi! Wich pump did you use for the new larger bird pond?
Amazing, thank you for sharing! Please, how do you keep the pond's water clean?
Thank you! Two things keep the water clean. First is frequent partial water changes. The bird ponds lose a lot of water to evaporation and to birds splashing (and carrying water off with them when they fly away soaking wet). So, I top them off with fresh water just about every day (I don’t have to do this if we get enough rain). While I’m refilling, I spray down the pebbles to wash away any accumulated dirt. The pools have a low spot that allows the excess, dirty, water to flow out and into the gardens. The second thing is mechanical and/or biological filtration. I use filtering based on what people use for fish ponds. On the main bird pond - the one with the water fall flowing over the rocks and into the bathing pool - the pump is in an open water reservoir beyond the bathing pool (basically a small fish pond with no fish) and the pump is in a filter box that helps clean the water. It’s then pumped up to a waterfall filter that further cleans the water. You can find both of these types of filters anywhere that sells fish pond supplies. The woodland stream uses a more natural filtration system in which the bed of pebbles that the pump is buried under serves as a biological filter. Good bacteria and other organisms naturally build up in the stone bed and clean the water. Drawing water down through the bed of pebbles also helps trap sediments. This is based on the bog filter or wetlands filters used for fish ponds. There are a lot of good videos on RUclips about how bog filters work. A channel called OzPonds has some of the best. Hope this helps!
@@WarblerRidge Excellent, thank´s a lot!
How do you winterize the water pump?
I don’t do anything to winterize. It doesn’t stay very cold here in the winter. I’ve found that the pumps will continue to run, even if the temps drop below freezing. The pump is down below ground level, so it’s a little warmer down there. It takes several days in a row with the highs below freezing for the pools to really freeze up. I just watch the forecast and unplug the pumps when it’s going to be really cold and start them back up when things thaw out.
Great video. Love the little streams you've created! I have plans to do the same after just providing a small, circular feature with a shallow terra cotta dish, some flat rocks and a small pump last year. I was able to attract over 30 species. Where do you source all of your stone--especially the larger ones?
It’s amazing how many different birds are attracted to water! Good luck with your new project. I’m sure your birds will love it. My property here in Tennessee is on a rocky hillside, so there are rocks everywhere I look. I just gather up what I need for projects. I do buy bags of river pebbles at Lowes to use in the beds of the pools. You might try asking at a local garden center about stones. Or you could use a more readily available alternative like logs, bricks, or pavers as edging. I’ve started using logs and large branches on the edges of my water features so the tree clinging birds like woodpeckers and nuthatches have something to hold onto.
@@WarblerRidgeThanks. It is amazing what running water can attract. I'm in Western New York. I'd like to do something that looks as natural as possible. Do you have to clean these often? I find that my little "fountain" gets a lot of algae growth, though it is in midday sun.
@@cc63 The “puddle” project gets algae in the summer. It’s in full sun with no moving water, so not much I can do about that one. But the other two water features stay pretty clear. The “bird pond” is my oldest water feature and it is set up like a fish pond with no fish. There’s a small open water reservoir beyond the bird bathing areas that holds the pump. This pump is in a filter box and the water is pumped up to a waterfall filter than has biological and mechanical filtration. I clean the filters once a year in the spring. The newer woodland stream and the mini pond have filtration based on bog or wetland filters used in fish ponds. The pump is housed in a container that is buried under a bed of stones. Over time, the stone bed gets filled with organisms that clean the water. These were a bit of an experiment for me but they’ve been working really well. All of my water features get some fresh water added pretty much daily, and when I do that, I use the spray from the garden hose to stir up and rinse out the gravel layers where the birds bathe.
@@WarblerRidgeThanks for the info!
Does anyone know how to get rid of crows/ravens... im in Ga and we've had peregrins and hamks but the crows keep killing the offspring...😢
That’s terrible. I don’t have any suggestions but maybe someone else will have ideas to share.
I would love to do more water features, but our neighborhood has too many roaming cats. 😢. The entire neighborhood of cats visits my yard to hunt birds, chipmunks, and bunnies. Super annoying.
Argh! That’s terrible. You’re right, though, a ground level water feature is not a good option for you. I love kitties but I keep mine inside. Have you tried one of those motion activated sprinklers?
Looks great but my neighbours feed stray cats and they would kill all birds trying to take a bath.🤬
I’m so sorry. That stinks. But you’re right, something at ground level like this is not a good option if there are a lot of cats around.