Bird Watch: Papendick's outdoor sculptures for birds

Thanks to Lisa Boone at L.A. at Home for allowing us to re-post her essay about backyard bird feeders.

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Joe Papendick via L.A. at Home

As the leaves have begun to return to the limbs of my ash tree, so have the birds. The chirping has become so enticing lately, in fact, that I have become something of a backyard birder (otherwise known as "a yard work procrastinator").

So in an effort to put off weeding ... I mean, to attract more birds, I have been searching for an appropriate bird feeder. While there are certainly a lot of great-looking modern bird feeders available, I felt those might seem to be slumming it in my neglected, toy-strewn back 40. Yet the ones I found at my neighborhood hardware store seemed too corny.

Enter St. Louis artist Joe Papendick, whose sculpted steel bird feeders, shown above, feel just right. They are a little rough, just like my yard, and yet visually striking and colorful enough to be appreciated from a far kitchen window.

His new “Home” series, (in cinnamon, on the right) measures 6 inches square and 18 inches tall and is inspired by the shape of old wooden birdhouses (presumably the ones I didn't like). The Sunscreen Sunflower feeder (in yellow, at left) is designed specifically to hold Black Oil Sunflower Seeds. It also appears to be squirrel-resistant. The pieces hang from a 20-inch galvanized steel wire, all the better to keep squirrels and other rodents at bay.

The feeders range from $65 to $85 and are available on Papendick's Etsy page and 1000 Markets. For more information and custom orders, click here.

Text credit: Lisa Boone at L.A. at Home, photo credit: Joe Papendick.