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CatTV#7 was a hit, so I’ve made a 4K better quality Bird Bath video.
Here’s a quick little write up about a few options for creating running water in your birdbath. I wanted this for my bird bath to keep the bath filled up (evaporation) and even overflowing to help it clean itself and deter mosquitos, and of course the sound of water lets the birds know where it is!
You can make your own for cheap with this hose adapter and some length of 1/4″ drip irrigation hose. These two things are all your REALLY need to get going. If you want to get fancier, you can add little drip irrigation sprinklers like I did below.
Don’t forget that water running all day can be expensive so a hose timer might be a worthy investment! https://amzn.to/3uTvAms (digital) or https://amzn.to/3yjZ1jq (manual)
You can get any number of available drip irrigation sprinkler or misters to attach to the end to control the amount of water that comes out. I bought these red ones and set them up to water about 20-30 plants in my garden on ONE hose! Don’t forget the T adapters if you want water to come out of more than one place on your hose.
<– It should look like this when you’re done! The black hose is just shoved into the hose faucet adapter thing and the same with the sprinkler. I remove the adjustable red cap and just turn down the faucet to send less water instead so there’s a nice steady stream.
Once you start using this hose you will want to have it running EVERYWHERE! Watering potted plants and vegetables and flowers and the best part is it doesn’t water the weeds like when you use a “spray everywhere” sprinkler.
If you have a rain barrel full of water you can do like me and just toss a small submersible pump into it and have the benefit of a constantly overflowing birdbath (to help keep it clean) without the additional water waste and expense. You will have to experiment a bit with this setup because a 50 gallon tank of water will run out in just a couple hours if the flow is too high on the pump. You may want to use smaller hose and the drip irrigation sprinklers to limit the water flow.
I experimented with a few things, but some things to look out for are the large water hose can sometimes scare the birds (looks like a snake if it’s black) and the birds will perch on the water line and can knock it down. In the video you can see I put some thick wire above the water line so they would land there instead.
If you decide this is all too much work, and your water isn’t evaporating that quickly you can try one of these solar fountains. I must say they are maybe more for show than anything but you may have different results.
