PLEASE DONATE A BIRD FEEDER!
Dear Birders & Bird Lovers especially in the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Being a new birder, and also having read 2 years of magazines from the UK and the US, it was wonderful to note that people there loves, conserves and even protects all their Wild Birds found naturally.
It is very strange that we in Asia were not taught to appreciate Wild Birds.
One can find so many pets shops selling bred birds and accessories to feed them. The same goes to hamsters and white mice.
In Malaysia, we still have many areas which are heavily forrested near homes. There are many Malaysian bird species, some endemic, can be spotted once awhile. Many are now coming out of their habitat because of their areas being cleared for agriculture, industries and housing.
We are fast losing these kind of lands .
Two year ago, we realised that we, as Bird Lovers, can help.
If each and everyone of us just put up a bird feeder (either the seed type or the nectar ones)
we can play a part in their survival.
But we found out that there is not a single shop in our Town, nor in our City, nor in our State, nor in our entire Country and eventually not even in the entire South East Asia that sells these kind of bird feeders!!!!!
This is really STRANGE because even in our education system, we were not really told exactly how to save our own nature! There are so many blabbering about saving our rare Malayan Tigers [which would be extinct in 10 years] but exactly how? We do not know, but maybe, go directly into the jungles to shoot the damn poachers ourselves!!! Our existing nature clubs and associations are even clueless about this kind of feeding. One even doubted me if feeding Wild Birds this way could work!!
I proved them wrong! Thank Gawd. It Works!
We made several types of nectar feeders to try and our Malaysian Sunbirds fed from it!!!!
Two kinds of 'do-it-yourself' feeders and with a bird bath.
Just then why are we Asians so negative about doing this? Some even said that the Wild Birds carries the Avian Flu Bugs!!!! Sheeshs!!! What da Bull! Clearly very un-educated!
Due to unsuitable materials available, our DIY feeders began to break apart.
We made it out from recycleable materials thus the cracking, discoloring thus breaking down.
We are getting tired of making new ones which could only lasts 4 months at a time.
We need to buy suitable feeders which are actually designed and made for that purpose.
The funny thing is that many of these feeders are Made in China but not a single piece can be bought in any Asian Countries!
We enquired via the internet and found that they are not that costly. Only the freight/post charges are impossible to meet. For example, a feeder only costs USD 12.00 and the cost to send a single piece is 3 times that much! This is ridiculous!
We would now like to make an Honest Plea to all Birders there to help us feed our local birds.
If you have a spare (unused) feeder of either the seed and the nectar type, please donate it to us.
The nectar type with side rail (above photo)
Another nectar type with side rails (above photo)
This is the seed type (above photo)
Excess feeders collected would be given FREE to our other Birders throughout our country so that we can share and help to feed our hungry Wild Birds.
Please pass this message to your friends and fellow birders or view this blogsite especially at my older posting at 1, 2, 3 and 4 here. A YouTube video is also a proof that it works!
You can also contact me at donaldghtan.at.gmail.dot.com (please key in actual email address the normal way. This is due to anti-spamming) for further infomation and the address to send the feeders. Please do not send CASH as we are not soliciting for it. We just need the feeders as we cannot buy it here even we have the cash!
For the nectar feeders, please send the type with side railing because our Sunbirds cannot hoover like the Hummers. They need to 'stand' to feed. Also do not send seeds or feeds because it will cause some Quarantine/Agriculture problems here in Malaysia.
And importantly, please state a note that these are bird feeders as a gift/donation and not for sale because, we may be faced with the un-necessary import and sales tax imposed!
Thank you so much for reading this. We sincerely hope that you can contribute.
Please remember to pass this plea to your friends. This is the least we can do for our very own Wild Birds.
Thanks once again.
