Cake For The Birds

Making Cakes For The Birds

A Read-Along Activity

The bears have been looking through an old Bird Watch pack, and they found recipes for suet cakes for the birds, and biscuits for the watchers (like them!) They decided that they would follow the recipe for the suet cakes so that they could hang them up in their garden and maybe encourage even more birds to visit them.

They needed to find some yogurt pots, some string, a pair of scissors, some suet or lard, a mixing bowl, some bird seed, some raisins and some grated cheese.

All The Materials

But they couldn't find any yogurt pots! Oh no! They failed at the first item! But Scary suggested that perhaps they could use small plastic plant pots instead, so they found some of those, and, sure enough, they turned out to be ideal for the job! Clever Scary!

Scary And Custard Mixing The Cakes

The string and scissors were easy items to find, and they had a mixing bowl. They didn't have any suet but they did find some lard in the fridge, so they took that out so that it would become a bit softer whilst they found the other ingredients. They always have birdseed around so there was plenty of that, and they had raisins amongst their baking foods, and there was a block of cheese which Edward very carefully grated a portion of - he made sure he didn't grate any of his paws as well!!

Nearly Done

They put the softened lard, the birdseed and the raisins and grated cheese into the mixing bowl and mixed them altogether.

Mix Finished, Pots Ready

They used a wooden spoon to do the mixing because otherwise the lard would have got all in their fur - and that might have been very difficult to get rid of!

The plant pots already had holes in the bottom of them, so that it was easy to thread a piece of string through them and knot it on the inside. They made sure there was enough string left so that they could tie their pots up in the garden.

Custard Filled The Pots

Then they stuffed the pots with the mixture they had made, making sure to push it right to the bottom and that the string came through the middle. Then they put them in the fridge to set.

Pots In The Fridge

The next day, they removed the pots from around the suet cakes, and they hung one out in a tree in the garden, close enough to the house so that they could see any birds which visited. Almost before they were back inside, there were several birds investigating their new food! It was so successful that the bears will be making some more to hang up during the rest of the year.

Why don't you try making some suet cakes for the birds in your garden too? The bears found it very easy, if a little bit messy!!! Follow what the bears did above, or look at the instructions in the Resources section here. Have fun!

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