Birdseed Wreaths

So, for this project, I stuck with my theme of emphasizing the value of nature. After talking to Ashli, I talked to a few other environmental/wildlife biologists and they led me to new insight. They talked about how nature gives a home to endangered plant and animal species, especially birds, and that's why they find New Mexico's landscape meaningful. This made me want to be more interactive with native wildlife. So I made bird wreaths. Bird wreaths are molds of a birdseed mixture (water, flour, honey, birdseed, dried fruit) that have been baked and can then be hung from trees to attract birds.

I ran in a few problems with the wreaths. My plan was to make two large ones and hang them on two separate trees, but the broke. The first one shattered because I made it too thin (I had hoped for it to be light enough to sustain it's own weight whilst hanging from the tree) and the next one was too heavy to support it's own weight so as soon as I hung it, it fell and shattered. So I decided to make mini wreaths, which came out alot better.  

From my interviews, I learned that the most common place to find birds is behind restaurants. So I decided to hang the wreaths on trees behind the Taj Mahal restaurant in Albuquerque. I didn't wait to see if any birds ventured to those specific trees but I hope they did.