Henry Bell Essential Window Bird Feeder

Henry Bell Essential Window Bird Feeder

A window feeder fixes to the glass itself, which makes it the answer where there is no garden to speak of — a balcony, a yard, a flat with one window onto a car park. It is also the only feeder that puts a blue tit at arm's length, which is why Henry Bell pitch it at families and at children learning what lives outside.

Henry Bell list it as suitable for seed, peanuts and sunflower hearts, so it takes the three commonest garden foods rather than one. Like the rest of the Essential range it has an easy-opening lid and a removable angled base, so refilling and cleaning do not mean unclipping the whole thing from the window.

Performance & Benefits

• Fixes directly to a window pane, so it needs no garden, no post and no feeding station.
• Takes seed, peanuts or sunflower hearts — Henry Bell list all three.
• Easy-opening lid and removable angled base, so it refills and cleans without a fight.
• Ring perches are used through the Essential range where the design calls for them, to give birds something solid to stand on.
• Puts feeding birds close enough to identify without binoculars, which is the point of it.

Suitable For

• Flats, balconies, yards and gardens too small for a feeding station.
• Families and children watching garden birds at close range.
• Blue tits, great tits, coal tits, house sparrows and greenfinches, which all take readily to window feeders.
• Seed mixes, sunflower hearts and peanuts.
• Not the feeder for shy ground-feeders — robins, dunnocks and blackbirds are better served by the Henry Bell Essential Ground Feeder.

How to Use

• Clean and dry the glass thoroughly before fitting; suction will not hold on a dusty or greasy pane.
• Press the feeder firmly to the glass and check it holds your own downward pull before filling it.
• Fill through the lid with seed, sunflower hearts or peanuts; a shallow fill keeps the food fresh.
• Take the angled base off to empty and rinse it, and let it dry before refitting.
• Clean weekly. A small feeder used by many birds gets dirty faster than a large one.

Specification

• Window-mounted feeder from the Henry Bell Essential range. Henry Bell product code H040074.
• Suitable for seed, peanuts and sunflower hearts.
• Opening lid and removable angled base, in line with the rest of the Essential range.
• Henry Bell publish no dimensions, capacity or fixing type for the window feeder, so none is stated here. Their 20cm height figure applies to the range's tube feeders, not to this one.
• The Essential range is finished in grey.

Care & Caution

• Do not put whole peanuts in it during the breeding season, roughly April to August. Adults carry whole nuts to the nest and a chick can choke on one. Kibbled peanuts or sunflower hearts are the safe choice at that time of year.
• Check the suction fixing regularly, particularly after frost and in hot sun, and refit it before it works loose over a paved area.
• Clean it weekly. Birds crowd a small feeder, and disease passes between them faster there than at a large one.
• Fit it on a pane you can reach safely from inside or from the ground — not one that needs a ladder every week.