carpentry, bird tables and gardens

Over the past couple of weeks I have been in the garden and doing decorating, but the aspect I have been surprised at is the discovery of carpentry. Lucy and I mended a fence last year, by putting up a new fence panel, it was a lot of work and frustrating. This year I mended a fence panel, one which had broken in the winter storms. It was much easier and pretty much enjoyable.
So with my burgeoning interest in photography we decided to get a bird table. Having looked at the range of tables availble, which ranges from twee to extremely expensive, we bought a bird feeder and I decided to make a bird table.
I had a bit of a hunt via google and saw the basic idea, then set to work. Essentially the idea is to have a flat surface, which the food does not blow off, but can still drain surface water from, so you need a rim around the table. I gave myself 45 minutes to make the table and set to work with the saw. No chainsaw involved, though thinking of this did make me smile whilst sawing. I cut up some old planks and used screws to attach them together with shorter bits of wood underneath, look at the photo below and you'll get the idea. It was an interesting experience, having an idea in mind just thinking how to solve it. The other important criteria was to make it for free, just using stuff hanging about the house.

When I lived in Nottingham I used to have cable and watch a programme, which I'm sure was called the Nantucket Sawmill, but google knows nothing of it. I'm fairly sure it was on Discovery home and leisure, as a daytime programme. Full of men making cabinets and bureau and garden furniture, using thousands of dollars worth of woodworking tools, great fun and completely unattainable.
So I made the bird table and did it for virtually free, we had to buy the metpost to hold it up. Making things for free is an interesting challlenge.
Having a bird feeder and table has dramatically increased the amount of wildlife in our garden. We get robins, a jay, wood pigeons, great tits, blackbirds, magpies, coal tits and 2-3 very persistant squirrels. It is fascinating just how quickly the garden becomes a home to animals that must be around the corner, but as there was no food, they did not visit. We are now avidly using the RSPB bird guide to identify them and taking plenty of pictures.
The squirrels are a different matter, they are very cute, but chase off the smaller birds and have a good run at the wood pigeons too. I am now locked in a gentle battle pitting my ingenuity against their intelligence. Maybe as this
quite sweet American story says I just need to learn to appreciate squirrels.