Saturday, November 26, 2011

Great-Looking Maybe, But Not With These Birds

Life is running a gallery of "Great-Looking Gifts" on their website, and the glass bird feeder shown above is one of them. Here is what they say about it:
The one thing aquariums have over birdhouses is that you get to watch your fish whenever you want. Now birdhouses get their own high-visibility makeover: This sculptural Mod Glass birdfeeder has an appealingly spare, modern feel — and allows you to observe your colorful feathered friends as they're nibbling. ($78, apartment48.com)
When I saw this image, the first thing that struck me was what birds they chose. The bird inside the feeder is a Common Redpoll, which breeds in the Arctic and migrates to southern Canada and the northern United States for the winter. The blue bird on the right is an Indigo Bunting, which breeds across the eastern United States and southern Canada and migrates south to Central America and the Caribbean for the winter. As far as I can tell, their breeding ranges do not overlap. These are two species that you are highly unlikely to see at the same feeder at the same time. The birds are also out of scale with each other, which makes the Photoshopping more obvious. Indigo Buntings are slightly larger than Common Redpolls but not twice their size, as this bunting appears to be.

Beyond that, I am not sure how functional this feeder would be in practice. The bowl seems very shallow and would not hold a lot of seed, so it would need constant refilling. If it swings back and forth, a lot of that seed could get knocked out. I can also imagine squirrels jumping on the feeder and either knocking it down or knocking the seed out. So if you are looking to splurge on a new bird feeder, I would suggest passing on this and looking for something more functional.