At the risk of sounding really lame, one of my favorite things to do is to renovate the backyard bird feeding station. That usually means (okay, that always means!) that I think up an idea to help lure birds closer, and hubby does the hard work of making it happen.

The other day, he and I traipsed out to the woods, and returned to the backyard with the straight trunk of a slender pine tree and some barren farkleberry branches. Hubby carved out the center of the pine trunk to turn it into a feeding trough, and strapped the farkleberry branches up to our big old oak tree by the fountain to give some extra perches and places to smear Bark Butter.

Let’s just say that the feeding station renovation was an instant sensation! I promise you, as soon as we finished and put out the food a crowd showed up!

The Bluebirds quickly arrived to investigate..

…as did Pine Warbler after Pine Warbler.

The male Downy Woodpecker popped in to check out the place…

…and so did his female counterpart.

A pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers dropped in to dine…

…but then opted for carry out.

And a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker hopped on over to partake of some Bark Butter.

Right now, the crowd has been pretty classy, but I know it won’t be long before the riff raff shows up to wreak havoc.

There are still a couple of finishing touches to add to the renovations, but the birds have already let me know that they love what we’ve done with the place!