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Birds love water. Birds need water just like humans. They use it for assistance in nest building in the spring. It serves as a refreshing drink and helps with food digestion. Birds just feel more comfortable and healthy when they can get clean and have a little help with parasite removal. Watch birds around a bird bath, and its like kids at the pool, they just like to have fun.

Here are a couple of basics for clay bird baths. Start with terra cotta pot saucer; elevate it by placing on a rock, in an old chair seat or corner of deck or patio railing. Fill with water and watch the fun begin.

Take two terra cotta pots and an over sized saucer. Plug the hole in the bottom of the pot with rubber stopper. Poke a few pin pricks in the stopper to allow for dripping. Invert a pot of the same size to act as a stand. Glue the bottom of the two pots together leaving space for the water to drip through. Place the double pots in a saucer that will give about two inches of water all the way around. Place where runoff may be needed in garden. Fill the top pot with water each morning and it will drain slowly into the bottom pot over the course of the day. For a constant source of water run a 1/4 inch drip line from your outdoor faucet. They have Y valves in most hardware stores or garden centers for your faucet so that you can still use the regular garden hose.

Buy six or seven terra cotta pot saucers. Place them on stones or logs or outcroppings so that when the top saucer overflows it drips into the nest saucer and so on until it has reached the bottom saucer. This may take a little experimentation with placement but the end effect is a cool little series of fountains for little money. Fill a couple of the saucers with little stones, and maybe the lowest one with dirt in the spring to give the robins a little nest building mud. To supply water either run a 1/4 inch drip line from your outdoor faucet or use a plastic gallon water bottle hanging over the top saucer. Make a macram bag to hold the water bottle neck up for easy filling and a couple of pin pricks in the bottom for drip. Start the day by filling all the saucers and the gallon jug and watch the birds arrive in droves as they are attracted to the sound of dripping water. Just hose out to clean.

Have fun watching the birds, and remember that it's addicting with no known cure.

Learn more about this author, Betsy Young.
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