Both young and old can have fun in nature. Foster a love for and appreciation of birds in children by making bird feeders with them. These instructions will show you and your young ornithologist how to make an inexpensive pine cone bird feeder that will bring you hours of delight watching birds.

You’ll need the following materials:

- One large pine cone

- 4 ft of yarn or string

- 2 tablespoons each of peanut butter and margarine

- handful of bird seed

- Wax paper (newspaper will do in a pinch)

- Extra newspaper to catch the mess

Make yourself a hanger for your feeder. Attach the hanger to the feeder first, to avoid a sticky mess later. By doing this you can hang it on a tree. Create a loop at the top of your pine cone by tying a piece of yarn or string to it.

Combine the ‘bird seed adhesive’. Now that the functional aspect is done, you can work on the edible part of the feeder. Combine the margarine with the peanut butter in a mixing bowl. Get it well blended using a fork or a handheld power mixer. This is a very messy job, so dig in and worry about the clean up later. Take a spatula and spread the peanut margarine and butter combination all over the cone. Let the children jump in on this one mom and dad, it’ll be great fun for all. Be certain to cover each crevice of the pine cone. Put it through the center of the pine cone as deeply as you can. Continue mixing up peanut butter and margarine until you have a thick layer on it.

The next step is to cover it completely with the bird seed. Now you have covered it in the ‘bird seed glue’ proceed to the next step. You need to dump out the bird seed so that it lands directly on the baking pan. Next, take your pine cone and roll it around in the baking pan. This will make the seed stick to the mixture on your pine cone. Make sure all the bird seed is on the baking sheet. You can never have enough bird seed in your bird feeder.

Place the it into the freezer for an hour. The bird freezer needs to ‘cure’ in the freezer for awhile wrapped in either wax paper or newpaper to prevent a mess, but first cover the feeder with the bird seed. Let it sit for an hour, or until the feeder seems firm enough. Once your pinecone has spent an hour in the freezer it’s ready to do its job as a bird feeder, outside.