Birdfeeders Made With Wine Bottles

Melted Glass Bowl Feeder

• Purchase a dish made from a melted wine bottle, or make your own by firing a favorite bottle in a pottery kiln. Use this as a dish to hold birdseed or suet, and use it to attract birds to a level space, such as a picnic table or window ledge. For added security, tack down the glass dish using office tack to ensure that it won't go flying and break as a result of high winds or overenthusiastic avian eaters.

Seed Dispenser

• Make an upside-down seed-dispensing feeder by shaping wine corks. Use an oscillating power tool to partially hollow out an artificial cork, making a wide cylindrical hole that runs from the portion of the cork inside the bottle almost to the top of the cork. Cut a hole in the side of the cork attaching to this chamber to allow seed to fill the chamber inside and be available to the bird; fill with a thick seed, such as a mix with sunflower seeds, to ensure that the seeds fill the lower chamber but don't spill out. Use thick wire or part of a wire coat hanger to fashion a perch for the birds to use while they eat, attaching it to the mouth of the bottle above the cork and wrapping it down below the cork.

Hummingbird Feeder

• Make the wine bottle into a hummingbird feeder by creating a double-layered, dispensing lid. For this project, start with a wine bottle that has a screw-on cap, rather than a cork, and cut a dime-sized hole out of the top of the lid. Attach this lid top-down to the inside of a wider lid (such as a sports drink) using four quarter-teaspoon balls of epoxy putty. Position the putty pieces evenly around the outside perimeter of the large lid, then place the smaller lid over them, attaching the lids while leaving a tiny amount of space between them for the sugar water to flow into the large lid once the bottle is hung upside-down.

Combo Feeder

• Make a combo feeder for both hummingbirds and other fowl by building the hummingbird feeder above, then coating the outside of the bottle with a combination of birdseed and suet or peanut butter. Larger birds will eat this while the hummingbirds enjoy the sugar water.