Why Build Rather Than Buy

A shop-bought bird table is usually stapled pine, dipped in a preservative that smells of creosote for a fortnight. Build your own and you choose the timber, the height and the shape, and you end up with something that looks as though it belongs among the hazel and hawthorn rather than in a garden centre aisle. Untreated, unpainted wood is also the kindest surface for birds: no flaking varnish, no chemical film under their feet, no sharp metal edges. Build it well and it will silver with age and last a decade or more in a sheltered corner.

Choosing the Timber

Ask a local sawmill or woodland trust for offcuts of durable, untreated species. Anything that weathers well outdoors without chemical treatment will do:

• Sweet chestnut or oak for the upright post — both resist rot for years, even in damp ground.
• Larch, Douglas fir or cedar for the tray and roof: light, stable and naturally weather-resistant.
• Hazel or ash coppice poles for perches, a rustic trim and a decorative edging strip.
• Galvanised or stainless steel screws — never ordinary steel, which bleeds black stains and fails within a season.

Avoid pressure-treated timber for any surface the birds stand on or feed from. Bark-on poles look wonderful, but strip the bark from the post below ground level, where damp bark invites rot.

A Simple Cutting List

These measurements make a table roughly 40 cm square, mounted at about 1.5 m — comfortable to fill, awkward for cats.

• Post: 75 x 75 mm, 1.6 m long, set 25 cm into the ground.
• Tray base: 18 mm board, 400 x 400 mm.
• Tray sides: 45 x 18 mm battens, four pieces 400 mm long, butted or mitred.
• Roof: two boards 450 x 250 mm, meeting at a shallow ridge.
• Roof uprights: four 300 mm lengths of 20 mm square batten.
• Perches: two 20 mm dowels or peeled hazel rods, 150 mm long.

Drill six 6 mm drainage holes in the tray base before you assemble anything. Water sits in a table with no way out, and a permanently wet tray turns to mush in a single winter.

Assembling the Table

Pre-drill every screw hole — seasoned hardwood splits without warning, and even softwood will crack if you drive screws close to an end grain. Work on a flat surface so the tray stays square.

Fix the tray sides around the base with 40 mm screws, countersinking each head so nothing protrudes. Turn the tray over and fasten a 150 mm cross-batten across the underside; this spreads the load and gives you a solid fixing point for the post. Screw the post to that batten with two 75 mm screws, then add a diagonal brace if the table feels at all springy.

Stand the four roof uprights in the corners of the tray and cap them with the two roof boards, leaving a 20 mm overhang all round so rain drips clear of the food. Add the perches to two opposite sides, angling them slightly downwards so they drain. Finally, sand every cut edge and round off the corners of the tray — a rough edge traps damp and holds dirt.

Weathering It Well

Do not varnish, paint or stain the feeding surfaces. If you want to protect the post, and only the post, treat it with raw linseed oil and let it dry completely before assembly. A small sacrificial base plate of scrap timber under the tray, replaced every couple of years, saves the whole table from an unnecessary rebuild.

Check the fixings each autumn. A table that wobbles in a gale will soon shed its roof, and a loose tray loses food to the wind as fast as you put it out.

Siting, Hygiene and Year-Round Visitors

Give the table at least two metres of clear ground on every side. Birds need a clean flight line in and a quick escape route out, and cats rely on cover to ambush. Plant a hawthorn, holly or hazel within a few feet and you create a staging post that turns a feeding station into a small habitat of its own.

Clean the tray weekly with hot soapy water and a stiff brush, and move the table a little each spring to stop droppings and discarded seed building up in one place. Rotate foods through the year: sunflower hearts and suet balls in winter, nyjer and small seeds in spring, fruit and mealworms when young birds are being raised. Keep a shallow dish of clean water nearby — a bird table with a drink beside it is visited far more often than one without.

Both jobs, the building and the watching, are better done slowly. Make a mug of tea, sit back from the window, and let the table do its quiet work.