Best-Selling Bird Feeder for Urban Bird Watchers

As the dark days of winter deepen, it's growing ever more icy outside my window. No-one ventures out without coat and scarf, hurrying towards the next source of warmth.

Those long summer days seem so far away, yet I'm day-dreaming about them still. I recall camping in the middle of nowhere, sitting outside my tent and watching the natural world play out its minute dramas all around me.

There were brave birds then, ones I couldn't even name in their beautiful unfamiliarity, which swooped down from tree-tops to raid my picnic stores. I waited, watching unseen, until those bold, feathered souls had taken their fill.

It was idyllic, quite wonderful, but something which I thought could never be brought home. Until it occurred to me to just fix a bird feeder to my urban window pane.

If you had asked me an hour ago to guess the best-selling Pet Supplies item on Amazon, I'd have got it wrong. I'd have assumed that it was something to do with dogs or cats. The internet likes dogs and cats.

I'd navigated to the animal section with a view to finding a bird feeder. You can imagine my surprise to find that one was right there, at the top of the home page.

Birdscapes Clear Window Feeder holds pole position as THE most popular animal related product on the site. And here's me thinking it was going to be the cat's inflatable unicorn horn. So what's all the fuss about then?

Naturally, its elevated placement in the ranks of pet products made me wonder what was so great about it.  I mean, did it whistle Dixie at the approach of rare species?  Or transform itself during idle hours into a vacuum to clean your floor?

As far as I can ascertain, the Birdscapes Clear Window Feeder is cheap, but very effective at what it does. 

There are many more expensive window bird feeders out on the market. Those look fabulous and incorporate all many of weird and wonderful features.  But at the end of the day, you just want to feed the wild birds.

The Birdscapes feeder does that. It's also very sturdy.  I was reading in the comments about someone who hadn't attached the suction pads correctly. (Washing the window and pads in soapy water first is great; as apparently is adding a bit of natural oil - sweat to you and I - onto the pad before sticking it to the window.) Their feeder fell three storeys onto concrete, yet wasn't even dented.

There's also the fact that it's clear. Secretly watching from the other side of the window, you can observe every feathered visitor, even as they head into the feeder for some seed.

It's too small for nesting. You won't be risking bird droppings over your glass or any of that stuff. They'll merely swoop on in, nick some food and fly away again to enjoy it.  Just like that summer day at camp.