Adventures in Woodwrecking: New Bird Feeder

Finished product with seed.

So, spurred on by the heady rush of less-than-complete-failure from previous woodworking projects, I decided once again that I had too much money/blood/self esteem, and set out on a new woody endeavor. Like every time before, I started out with a simple idea. We have birds. We have bird food. We do not have an effective means to transmit the food to the birds.

Please sir, may I have some more?

The simple solution would be to build one of the time-honored old-timey bird feeders. The sort everyone made in cub scouts or shop class. It was good enough for my pappy, and damn it, it's good enough for me. Except for the part where it's not.

Every boy scout from prehistory on made one of these. 99% of them promptly fell apart the moment a bird landed on them.Photo courtesy of Mybackyardplans.com

Every time I start down the path of a new wood project, you can almost pinpoint the moment where simple gets chucked over for ludicrously complicated. It's the precise moment when my brain sees something shiny and says “I can do that!”. In this case, it was a plan from Lowes which, oddly enough, involved buying a lot of expensive materials from Lowes. To be fair, I was also lured in by their one minute, “how easy is this?” video. That video is a damn dirty lie.

Easy to make! ...for Bob Villa.

So I threw over the tried and true but slightly boring bird feeder for the shiny, acrylic, trendy, super sexy....bird feeder. I may need to get out of the garage more. But now was no time to exercise judgment or perspective, there were power tools to cackle maniacally over.

The Build

It started fairly easily. The base is composed of cedar 1X2s. The only tricky bit here was getting them exactly the same length on my less than stellar mitre saw, and spacing them out at 1/16^th inch. Building this little lattice gave me a disproportionate feeling of accomplishment.

Basic layout.

I'd never worked with cedar before, which isn't saying much because all I've ever used is pine/whitewood. I know a marvelous world of woods lies out there waiting to be explored. However, it also comes with less than marvelous prices. Cedar is actually pretty cheap. If you can live with it not being finished on one side (left rough), then it's pretty good stuff. Once I added the end pieces, I gave it a coat of Thompson's Water Seal. Cedar is weather and rot resistant already, but this brought out some darker color and gave it a little more protection. Even this early in the process, I was fairly sure I did not want to have to make this thing twice.

End pieces added

Water Seal brushed on

Finished base

The next step was to build the “spreader” which would sit under the bird seed and make sure it distibuted to the openings in the feeder. This was the first of many steps that gave me the sneaking suspicion Lowes engineered this thing to use as much wood/as many parts as possible, since I'm pretty sure gravity would have accomplished the same thing. But a plan's a planⁱ, so I dutifully built and installed the spreader. I spent a lot of time hand sanding and staining the wood. Any rational person would have realized “hey, no one's actually going to see that wood...”. I hope by now I have established that rationality has no place in my woodworking processⁱⁱ.

Spreader and other pieces cut and finished

Spreader assembled and installed.

With the base done, it was time to start on the sides. Again, I spent a lot of time picking out the best looking pieces of wood I could find to create the sides. And, again, it occurred to me later that these beautifully sanded and finished pieces will be permanently obscured by the siding. I was so busy picking out the perfect pieces, I inadvertently cut both sides on the same angle (they need to be mirror opposites.) I cursed and went to cut new side pieces....and promptly cut them at the wrong angle again. Eventually I got the sides done, and nailed on the “siding”.

So pretty....so wrong.

Side trim cut and stained

Trim installed right over that pretty wood.

With the wood work done, it was time to install the acrylic. I had never worked with acrylic before, but it seems like it's pretty much a staple of bird feeder technology, so I figured, how hard could it be? A large pile of shattered and discarded acrylic pieces in the corner of my project desk attests to that answer. You can't just MAKE acrylic into what you want, you have to coax it...convince it that it's in its best interests to be what you want it to be. It's temperamental stuff. Finally, though, after signing over my paycheck to Lowes and fantastically shattering the heck out of several pieces, I got the inserts cut and installed them on the sides.

Cutting side panes

Matching panes to sides

Installed side pane

It may have just been lack of oxygen from cedar dust coated lungs, or blood loss from acrylic shards, but at this point I was feeling fairly satisfied with progress. Now came the moment when all the pieces got put together. This is usually the moment in my projects where that previous feeling disappates rapidly and the frantic sanding and recutting to fit begins. Also, desperate desperate tears and please for deific intervention.

Side units get attached to the base

Acrylic panels get attached to the front and back as windows using fancy screws and the acrylic top is fitted.

Top gets screwed into the middle supports of the side.

While the corner posts are screwed into the base, the middle supports on each side are just held between the siding and the acrylic panel, letting it slide up and down so you can remove the roof. Clever in concept, horrendously hard to get the fit right in execution.

½ inch pipe flange added to bottom so this could be mounted on a pipe. And make Lowes more money.

Finally everything was squared away, and the final product was a (mostly) functioning bird feeder. All that's left is to mount it on a galvanized pole in the yard and fill it with seed. Then just sit back and watch birds actively ignore it. I am both worried and morbidly intrigued that the birds may crash fatally into the transparent topⁱⁱⁱ. I guess worse comes to worst, if it fails at feeding the small feeder birds who crash into it, it can always be repurposed as a vulture feeder...

Front elevation

Side View

Rear elevation

NOTES

iExcept when it's a recipe, which if you've read this blog before, you know is really taken as more of a suggestion.

iiOr foresight.

iiiThe actual plan from Lowes involved sandwiching two incredibly expensive pieces of Lexan toegther and then spray painting it black. First of all, Lexan? The stuff they make bulletproof windows out of? Do we really need our bird feeder to be safe from stray sniper fire? And two sheets of it? And then you buy spray paint to paint that beautifully clear Lexan black? I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to hire a guy to just stand there and hand feed birds.   

Gastronomical Interlude: Seafood Chowder

Chow-duh. Say it, Frenchy.

I have an aversion for recipes. I’m sure it points to some inner child issue with authority or some as-of-yet-undiagnosed, very specific unreasonable fear regarding Julia Child (bonappetitaphobia?). Regardless, I tend to go off the reservation on a fairly regular basis, as my long-suffering wife can attest[i].  As I’ve admitted before, I tend to look at recipes as fragments of a greater truth; pieces destined to be creatively intertwined. The only shackles of my culinary sojourns are: 1) what we happen to have on hand at the moment, 2) an appreciable amount of lazy, and 3) Physics. I believe the expression goes, “Cooking is like science for hungry people”, and I f&^%ing love science[ii].  This is the cavalier attitude that has led to previous gastronomical interludes, ranging from tasteful incarnations of standards, to blasphemies against all that is holy and good.

A common site in my kitchen.

A week ago I got it in my head that I wanted to make a Seafood chowder. Seeing as that my previous experience with chowder is mostly having consumed it, I looked at a slew of recipes for inspiration. As usual, I got bored halfway through most, and none really appealed to me. My theory is that you can make most things as long as you figure out what the base or key elements are[iii]. For a chowder, it’s the creamy soup base that’s the key.  And at the heart of that base, like all things good and pure in this world, is bacon[iv]. Sadly, we were out of bacon. But normally this is where one would start.

Bacon adds a savory base and saltiness that balances out the later flavors. Done well, you shouldn’t get an overly bacony taste. You don’t even have to leave any in the chowder, you can just cook it down in some butter and stock until you get a good deal of its essence. Then of course, eat it directly out of the pan in your guilt and dirty, dirty shame.

I wish I knew how to quit you, bacon.

While the bacon would, hypothetically, be simmering, I prepared the veggies. Some purists, apparently, like a great limitation on solids in chowder...they recommend using vegetables only sparingly, to make sure the base shines through, and that the chowder is not mistaken for a common stew. That is a more philosophical debate than I’m willing to have about chowder, honestly, so once again, I am impure.  I opted for parsnips[v], onions, potatoes (cooked separately) and celery. Regardless, we soldier on and veggies get chopped and potatoes start boiling.

This is a fantastic time to have your first beer. For this recipe I recommend the wonderful “Dig” Spring Seasonal from New Belgium. It’s a nice balance for the dish in that it’s green and earthy with balanced hops, and also that it’s beer.

 

In all fairness one may want to save the beer until the knife work is done.

Sauteeing the long-cooking vegetables come next. We start with some onions sautéing in the bacon infused butter/stock and add in a little more stock and the parsnips and celery. Bay leaves go in for the sake of not offending the spirit of Our Julia Who Cooks in Heaven (Hallowed Be Thy Souffle). You want to cook these down a little, but not so much that they’ll get mushy. Stock is slowly added, along with spices. I went with rosemary, to match the potatoes, and tarragon because I love me some damn tarragon.  

In which we turn fresh vegetables into actual food.

 Fish is pretty much a necessary ingredient for a seafood chowder[vi]. If you happen to have clams or mussels or shrimp or what have you, these are fine to toss in as well. I used catfish, which is great for taking on the flavors of whatever it’s in. Salmon is a good alternative since it holds up a little better than catfish. I cooked it down in a little stock and butter, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Yup. That’s fish.

In the mean time, we have added heavy cream, additional stock, and the cooked potatoes to the stock pot. Finding the balance between cream and stock is fairly important. It’s actually a lot less cream than you would think. Too much cream and you lose some of the flavor. I used a little finely sifted flour to get the thickness up to par. You want a good chowder going before you add the fish, which we will then unceremoniously dump into the chowder[vii].

Soup becomes fish soup, on its way to graduating to chowder. Or combusting. It’s a fine line in my kitchen.

At this point, the chowder is coming together pretty awesomely. Feel free to do a tentative dance of exaltation. Add in any quicker cooking items like the yellow peppers I selected, or even something like green apple if you’re feeling especially sassy[viii].  Simmer for a little while, but not too long. Just enough to let flavors diffuse.

Chowder, or a reasonable approximation thereof.

My chowder was, shamefully, a little thin so I used the leftover cooking liquid from the fish to form a thickening roux/paste. A little butter, white wine, and flour combines with the stock/fish, worked really well. I added it until the appropriate level of thickness was achieved[ix].

There is no problem butter cannot solve. Flour is just along for the ride.

I didn’t spend as much time thinking about sides as I did about the main dish. Luckily I had a nice acorn squash[x] on hand. Ideally I would have had some sourdough popovers or something, but it was already about 9PM and my wife was eyeing the takeout menus in desperation, so I made some cornbread muffins[xi] instead. The end result was good, but would have really benefitted from the bacon or similar savory base.

Chowder and Associates.

NOTES

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[i] I can tell if I’ve actually made something good by the level of surprise that eclipses her usual pained smile when tasting it. Sort of like a condemned man getting a reprieve, I’d assume.

[ii] Though, with respect to my actual scientist friends, my particular brand is admittedly more likely to skew toward the “mad” category when it comes to food. I’m less about the rigors of the scientific method, and more about “Hey, I wonder if broccoli can explode…”.

[iii] For this reason, it’s fairly likely that this post will be of little use to anyone actually trying to recreate this dish, unlike the wonderful food bloggery from my friend Joel. I am often unable to recreate my own dishes. They are precious and unique snowflakes. This post is really more about documenting the process. Or the evidence, depending on the outcome…

[iv] I exaggerate for affect…to be honest I’m not one of the bacon fanboys that live on the internet and obsess about bacon in the absence of anything else of import to focus on. I like bacon. I think it’s a great ingredient. I don’t however, wear ironic hipster t-shirts about bacon or have bacon-related decor. I try not to be judgemental in general, but I really can’t stand, and admittedly sometimes embody, this decidedly first world fascination of meta-obsessing about objects like it’s part of our identity. Bronies, I’m looking at you on this one.

[v] Fair warning, I frequently forget that parsnips can overpower a dish if you’re not careful. I like them, so my portions reflect this.

[vi] From a geologic time scale perspective you could probably get away with using chicken or even beef as something that, at one time, was sealife. But this would probably not be as witty as it seems in your head, and mostly just confuse people and make Julia cry.

[vii] If you have opted for a more expensive, fancy fish like Salmon or trout, feel free to dump it ceremoniously. I recommend something with a brass band and bunting. With the way I cook, I am usually wary of incorporating ceremony as it’s rather likely it would turn out like the opening of the Ark ceremony in Raiders. Why compound blasphemy?

[viii] Though to be honest, if you’re feeling an abundance of sass, chowder may not be the dish for you. May we recommend instead, something in a gazpacho? Gazpacho practically DRIPS with sass.  

[ix] This is probably unnecessary for people who like thin soups. I like my chowder like Sir Mixalot likes his butts. Thick. But honestly, now that I think about it, it’s probably not the best simile to juxtapose butts and chowder.

[x] Acorn squash is one of those amazing intersections of “tastes good” and “good for you”. It is in almost the exact middle between the Heisenbrenner Bacon-to-Tofu Scale of Relative Deadliness as a Function of Nutritional Goodliness. I reject any notion that I completely just made that up.   

[xi] There is no greater friend to the bachelor, college student, or chef in need of a starch in a hurry than the Jiffy Cornbread muffins mix. If you have 25 cents, 15 minutes, and an egg, you have cornbread. It’s just shy of magic. 

Raptors!

I can drive razor sharp talons into prey in dives of over 200 mph. So yeah, go ahead, Instagram me like it makes you a worthwhile species.

There are elements of bird-watching that are invariably somewhat embarrassing. Explaining to family or friends one’s excitement at noting a particular species of duck. Being seen painstakingly stalking a three inch warbler in a public location as if your life depended on it. Trying to use names like “sapsucker”. “tit”, and “booby” without hint of irony. Even if one shields one’s self in the cladistic hoohah of birds as extant dinosaurs[i], allowing one to claim he is “dinosaur-viewing”, there is just something that inherently doesn’t translate well to the masses.

Luckily, we have raptors.

 

Clever girl…

Raptors, at least the extant variety, comprise a variety of specially-equipped, vertebrate-eating birds of prey including hawks, eagles, falcons, kites, vultures, owls, etc. Their primary grouping revolves around their adaptations related to efficient and skillfully killing their way to the top of the food chain. This is overly science-y talk for “raptors are badass birds who flying around visiting sharp pointy death from the skies upon all manner of creatures, without mercy”. The very origin of their name (from the Latin rapere, to seize or take forcibly) is hardcore. People can legitimately chuckle at one’s fascination with a comically waddling Tufted Puffin. No one laughs at lightning-quick, talon-bedecked baddassery. Raptors are inherently cool.

This is my war cry.

While I’m interested in all manner of wildlife, and have focused on birds for some time, my interest in a lot of birds is a bit detached. I have an academic curiosity, or a desire for novelty, or an interest in the general ecology they flit about in. However, I am full bore, fist-pumping excited about raptors.  Dizzying speeds, amazing eyesight, razor sharp beaks and talons, and the instinct to tear into whatever crosses their path? Sign me up.

This is my beak. It is where food goes. Unwillingly.

Growing up, I was surrounded by wildlife. As a kid in the country, I often played more with frogs and snakes than I did with other kids. I always had the general curiosity of children encountering other life forms (a heady mix of wonder and destructive impulses), but it was usually a transitory phenomenon.  However, the one thing that would always send me running to the big bay window in the kitchen with my parents’ massive, antiquated binoculars, was the sight of a Red-tailed hawk soaring on the thermals above our fields. It was an indelible mark on my early memory such that whenever I see a red-tail, I often think I can almost smell the musty old binocular case and feel the rough wood of the window frame on my elbows.

The red on my tail is actually bloodstains.

And I don’t think I’m alone. We made a raptor the symbol of our country[ii]. Indigenous people all over the world wear raptor feathers in ceremony. Even owls, the AV club of the raptors, are respected symbols of wisdom. Even reviled vultures are harbingers of the grim reaper. I mean, when the fecal matter absolutely hit the fan, what really saved Middle Earth? Big-ass eagles, that’s what.

“Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a…OH MY GOD YOUR TALONS ARE SHREDDING MY VERY SOUL ASUNDER”

So, regardless of one’s understanding of the interest of chasing bitty little birds around the landscape, there is something universal about awe in seeing a raptor fly that needs no explanation. I think part of this is that when one looks at you, regardless of the assurances of your conscious mind, there is some part of you that is thinking “I’m pretty sure that feathered paragon of death is sizing me up as a meal”. And that, friends, is awesome[iii].

We’re watching you, human. We are totally going to eat you, even if it takes a whole mess of bites.

I’m the Harrier! Am I a hawk? Am I an owl? Who knows, who cares. Winged death by any other name kills as sweet.

We’re the falcons! OMG! We’re super cute! We’re dainty! We’re TOTAL KILLING MACHINES.

We look cute, but we’re set up for soundless flight, can see in the dark, and can exert incredible crushing power with our talons. So, you know, go ahead and turn your back on us since we’re so harmless.  

We are become death, devourer of worlds. And dead stuff. And dying stuff. And pretty much just stuff in general.

Even if I was actually bald, I’d still be more awesome than you, pinky.

Raptors, from top to bottom are:

Peregrine Falcon, Red-tailed Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, Feruginous Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Asiatic Eagle Owl, Rough-legged Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Northern Harrier, Northern Harrier, Merlin, American Kestrel, Barred Owl, Gret horned Owl, Eastern Screech Owl, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Bald Eagle.

Notes:

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[i] Yes I know I’m supposed to drink the Kool-Aid and worship at the phylogentic altar proclaiming birds as not only descended from dinosaurs, but that they ARE dinosaurs. I just don’t buy it. The emperor’s new clothes are just not that replendant. I know it’s oversimplifying it, but saying birds are dinosaurs, being the extant species of that subjective clade, is like saying humans are Gibbons (hylobatidae). Or rodents. Or bacteria. It’s a subjective classification masquerading as an absolute clade boundary. I have no  issue with talking about birds evolving from dinosaurs. But evolution is not a neatly divided thing; it is a continual, gradual process. You might as well say birds are archosaurs, or that which proceeded them, and so on. Saying a clade starts at any given point is like saying a family tree starts at a given point. I can say, yes, everyone in this tree descends from our great great great grandfather. But he in turn is a part of a tree going further back, etc. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. They are not dinosaurs, just as man evolved from early mammals, but is considered an extant synapsid. I know paleontology disagrees with me. Too bad, get your own blog, paleontology.

[ii] No thanks to Ben Franklin. A turkey? Really? Get the hell out of here with that.

[iii] I realize that this post has the tone of a 9 year old writing about ninjas. So be it.