~ SIMPLE BIRDSEED SUET CAKES ~

Here's what you'll need for this project:

black oil sunflower seed

saved grease from cooking (bacon fat, hamburger grease, sausage grease, fat from roasts, etc)

waxed paper

knife (for cutting into individual sized cakes)

freezer space

 I really enjoy 'my' backyard birds all during the year.  During the growing season, they don't have much trouble finding food, but winter here is a different story.  The hardiest of the hardiest can manage, but life is tough for a songbird...any bird, or any critter when food is scarce though.  I  like to and enjoy helping them out a bit until the sun is shining and flowers start to bloom again.  So I feed them through the winter, usually black oil sunflower seed and corn.  I have feeders for woodpeckers and suet loving birds (and squirrels) too.  When I have leftover grease from baking, I save it up and use it to make suet cakes.  Here's how I do it, the process is very simple.

I first combine my left over grease and sunflower seeds, the amounts can vary depending on how much fat you have on hand, I had about 1 1/2 cups of fat and added enough sunflower seeds to make a consistency of cookie batter or Rice Krispie treats.  (Now I'm getting hungry!)

People will often try to save some money buying 'wild bird seed', but honestly, the cheaper seed mixes have weed seeds as fillers, and I know many birds eat weed seeds, but these are seeds that they pick through to get to the good stuff.  In other words, those seed mixes put in seeds that most birds don't eat, therefore, they sit on the ground until spring and then most likely will germinate into something you don't want growing in or near your yard.  The black oil sunflower seed runs about $10 for a 10 pound bag,   It can be found cheaper the larger bag that is bought, the price goes down the larger the bag.  I've learned from experience to stick with the minimum of sunflower seeds....every backyard critter from birds to deer love them.  They attract all kinds of birds.

After I've formed my large bird cake on a wax paper lined cookie sheet, I fold over the edges so I get nice firm sides.  This helps when it's time to cut them into cakes.  I place the cookie sheet with the bird cake into the freezer.  Once it's frozen, simply remove and cut into shapes of your choice.  I chose to cut them into 4x4 inch squares since that's the size of my suet feeders, but any size or shape will do, the birds don't discriminate!  Now, being that I don't like to waste anything, I wrapped the suet cakes in the waxed paper that I lined the cookie sheet with!  No waste!  If I were making these for gifts, which you can totally do, any bird lover would like a gift like this, I would have been more careful on cutting and wrapping, but these are for our use, so that wasn't a concern here.   I had a bit left over from cutting and I just placed the bits and pieces into a leftover container from sour cream.  These all go into a plastic or paper bag, and back into the freezer for a cold day.  

 Now on a nice cold day in January ( I can't believe I just wrote 'nice...cold...day...'), but on a nice cold day in January, I'll be able to trudge out to the back yard suet feeders and place a cake or two into the feeders, run back inside, and wait...and enjoy the bird feeding show.  And on the cheap too!  Consider that the cheapest suet cakes I can find that don't contain fillers that the birds don't like costs about $1.40 per cake, these cost a fraction of that, the cost of the seed and waxed paper.  :)  Nice return!!

Backyard birds outside today

The winter in the backyard woods. This pine tree in our back yard is huge, about 50 ft. high, and might be the main reason we're lucky enough to have such a variety of birds visit. It's like a bird hotel.

I was trying to get a nice perching shot of this male cardinal and snapped just as he started to fly to the ground to feed. This isn't the best shot, but I'm keeping it because now I'm determined to catch one in flight! It's going to take me bundling up and sit outside for a couple of hours and to be patient, but I'm determined now! (This shot was taken from my bathroom window of all places!)

The male northern cardinal is always so easy to find because of their bright red plumage. That would be the reason you see so many shots here, plus the fact that we're lucky enough to have about 8 pairs of cardinals this year as regular visitors!

This sweet little Carolina wren hangs out mainly in the fall and winter. It might be around in the summer, but I don't notice it as much. We have two visit the yard, and one or both has flown into the house twice! Thank goodness they are friendly little birds that don't panic easily, the happy go lucky bird of the backyard. It was easy to direct them outside. So cute, and this one looks great against the brick pile we planned to use for our firepit. It's turned out to be a great winter feeding station so it's a good thing my hubby decided to go with stone for the firepit!

Ok, this gorgeous summer green may be out of place, but look below and it will make sense...

This is the same tree as above, a huge silver maple, but this is it's winter look. A squirrel was able to get this apple my hubby put out for the deer up to the nook in the tree shown above, about 15 ft. up. I'm sure it was a tasty little snack.

And here is the gorgeous female northern cardinal. They aren't as easy to find to photograph since they blend in so well to the trees. She is quite pretty. Towards the end of February, she'll be amost entirely olive, just in time to lay eggs for springtime. I can't wait to get a shot of her in her glory.



After a bit, I heard a woodpecker in the woods, and I spied where they had been feeding on the trunk of a huge tree. I didn't expect to actually be able to spot them, but this was my lucky day.

This red headed woodpecker appeared pretty quickly and it moves so fast, it's hard to get a good clear shot, but I thought it was worth trying (and keeping) since I don't often catch them with the camera away from the feeders. It's extra special catching them doing their thing, eating bugs under the tree bark.

This little white breasted nuthatch was doing the same thing. So cute, and so quick.