Help me wiggle water. But with a different wiggler. For the birds.

December 22, 2023 9:45 AM

The old wiggler in our DIY bird bath finally broke. It was ugly anyway. I'd like to find a more compact way to move some water. The bird bath is a large plant saucer with about an inch of water.

Here's the bird bath with the old wiggler (Dropbox link to video).

I don't want to spray water. Just move it a little. Water fountain products tend to spray. Aquarium pumps seem too powerful or the dimensions are wrong.

Battery-powered is probably best. Solar would be cool but a product like this is too big and it sprays.

I have a real bird bath incoming that's larger, so a solution that's too big for the current bird bath is still useful to me.

posted by mullacc to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Best answer: I have one of those solar fountains you said is too big. You can remove the top spraying part and make it more a mini burbler. Mine isn't working great right now, but I have had it at least two seasons and left it outside year round so I'm not really maintaining it or cleaning it or anything. Might be worth a shot with the bigger bird bath.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:21 AM on December 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

Robbie and Gary Gardening on YouTube have a bunch of DIY hummingbird fountain videos, which need to be gentle because hummies are tiny. Maybe they'll have some ideas you can modify.

They don't seem to have the videos organized into one playlist but here are a few:

How To Make Hummingbird ENDLESS Water Fountain
WATER Warning Issue FIX
Secret DIY Solar Fountain Bubbler
How To Make Hummingbird ENDLESS Water Fountain
How To Make Hanging Hummingbird ENDLESS Water Fountain
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:53 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: the solar fountain ended up working pretty well in the bigger bird bath.
posted by mullacc at 11:44 AM on December 29, 2023 [1 favorite]