Feeder beats bully birds
Frustrated at sitting in your garden watching pigeons edging out other wild birds for grub? It made one KZN birder so mad he was determined to change the status quo. He spoke to Liz Clarke
PIGEONS, so many of them that the little birds had no chance of getting within a feather’s distance of the bird table. That was the frustration that started artist, advertising designer and photographer, Barry Davis, on a solutionbased mission of his own.
“Drove me mad,” he said. “I used to put out seed for the little birds in the usual garden feeder and before they had a chance to peck, in came the pigeons and the doves, hogging the whole lot, dropping seed everywhere and eventually breaking the thing.”
There had to be a better way.
Barry admits that finding a solution was easier said than done.
“You cannot believe how many prototypes I have made – wood, plastic, string – they’ve all been part of the design samples, but nothing really worked.
“The pigeons were getting the better of me. Here I was a designer being outwitted by a pigeon!”
One morning, Barry and his wife were browsing in a gift shop, when he spied a mirror framed with decorative wiring.
“That’s it! That’s what I have been searching for all these years,” he told his wife, who was surprised at his sudden enthusiasm for home décor. Barry was quick to explain. “No. It’s the curly wire design I’m talking about. It’s just right for the bird feeders.”
With that concept in his mind, Barry set to and designed more prototypes using the thick wire idea. The person I got to help me was good at wirework but kept disappearing to Zimbabwe, so then I asked our gardener if he would like to have a go at making the feeders.”
Under Barry’s guidance, his new helper fashioned the wire into round twirls and then linked them together to form a ball. After fixing a plastic bowl to the bottom to catch the seed and a big seed ball hanging from the top, they were ready for the first test drive.”
One of the first feeder balls was set up in a Kloof garden and others were sent to friends in other areas.
“For the first few days, there was not a bird in sight. Then one morning a friend rang and said ‘You won’t believe it, there are hundreds of birds in the feeder’.”
From that moment on, Barry and his now extended team have been making the wire bird feeders for friends and family.
What has thrilled him most, he says, “besides outwitting the pigeons” is that his erst- while gardener has become a successful businessman.
“There is an art to working with wire and he has proved to be talented and capable. He has gone from earning a once-aweek gardener’s salary to earning enough to look after his family!”
Barry says that sitting in his garden watching the wild birds in his feeder, is a constant joy.
“The pigeons try their luck but can’t get a foot hold and have to settle for seed that has fallen to the ground. Indian mynahs think it’s a trap, so BARRY Davis has exhibited his prototype wild bird feeders at the Sasol Bird Expo and the World of Dogs & Cats Show. they stay clear!”
There’s all sorts of bird enticements that can be used, he says. “I like the solid seed balls or the suet balls, but you can always experiment.
“If I can do my bit at getting the small wild birds back to people’s gardens, and letting the pigeons peck on the ground, I will be very happy.”
He also hopes to share his skills with facilities that focus on work for the disabled.
“If they could be sold for a good cause that would make my day.” They are made of galvanised wire, powder coated and baked in an oven. For more information contact Barry Davis at macdavis@mweb.co.za