A Robin Takes a Dip in My (Redneck) Bird Bath

There seems to be a limitation to the kinds of birds that are willing to eat the seed off my deck. The variety is quite slow in coming. It started out with the Juncos, which have now (for the most part) moved on to greener pastures. The White-throated Sparrows have moved in for the time-being. But, I thought that maybe I could try some different tactics to attract other birds.

I thought, perhaps, that I might try other types of foods to attract other birds. Quite a while ago, someone had told me that grape jelly is an oriole attractant. (As if to confirm this, one of the local Walmart stores keeps a stock of grape jelly in the bird food aisle!) I thought that I might rig something up along these lines to try that in my yard.

An respected old-timer once told me that grape jelly in tuna fish cans was the way to go for attracting orioles. I had thought about trying this, but while I was driving around town the other day, I saw that someone had rigged up an oriole feeder using a tomato cage and a saucer (the kind that you typically put under your potted plants). They had put grape jelly in 'the dish'. What particularly caught my attention about this strange little setup... was the fact that it had actually attracted some orioles.

So, off I went to Walmart, where I bought myself a $2 tomato cage and a $5 saucer (the heavy duty kind). I taped the saucer down to the cage with electrical tape (duct tape probably would have worked better). After pushing the stakes down into my yard, I loaded the saucer with a few table spoons of grape jelly and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And nothing happened.

That is, nothing happened... until it started to rain.

And then my grape jelly turned into an orange-colored liquid, sitting out inside the saucer on top of the tomato cage in my yard.

I should probably have cleaned it out. Yet, not knowing when it was going to stop raining, and thinking perhaps that this jelly-liquid might attract hummingbirds (who knows?), I waited and let the mess sit for a while.

And then, yesterday -- a robin came along and found an alternate use for my redneck bird-feeder: A bird bath!

I can't imagine, though, that the robin felt too much cleaner after having bathed in my jelly water. (It was all said and done, I went out and rinsed out the saucer and filled it with clean water. We'll have to wait and see whether the robin comes back to actually get clean again....)