There’s a discussion started under Sandy Richard’s post of a Lazuli Bunting attracted to a drip, and she sent me a PM asking if I had any hints on setting up ponds and drips. I thought I’d post my response here for anyone interested:
Different sizes and conditions of ponds and flowing water seem to attract different birds. When we first put our backyard pond in, it had a fall at the beginning followed my about 10 feet of stream and another ten by four pool that was about 6-8 inches deep. It had a 2400 gph pump on it which the pond design folks thought was rather minimal and we decided was more than we really wanted. It did attract a lot of the local songbirds. and as it’s filled in with plants and the flow has been reduced it now attracts completely different groups. The robins are loving it and many of the sparrows still like it to bathe in. The main thing for a pond is to make sure there’s lots of vegetation on at least a couple of sides of it to let the birds approach under cover. Trees above it can do much the same thing and can keep shade over it for more even light. We stayed at a place in Texas years ago where the host had built a beautiful water feature that was surrounded by brush and incredibly popular with the local birds. It was also in the hill country, so it was built of limestone and there was no shade, so you can imagine what it was like to shoot with the sun very high. As for drips, I have two, side by side. One drips into a pool in the ground that’s roughly 2 feet by 4 feet. The other drips into a little pool I made out of Hypertufa (pseudo cement, but much lighter-need to add something to darken the formula). It’s set up on loosely piled rocks to get it at almost camera height when I’m sitting in my blind in a low chair (Re-store purchase with legs shortened). That one is no more than half and inch deep while the ground pool is about 4" deep. I put rocks in both to provide places to perch and in the lower one, slanted rocks to allow approaches for bathing. If you like those lovely images that just skim the surface of the water, I have a book, can’t recall the title right now, that talks about attracting birds for photography and the author was more handyman than photographer. He built a shallow box about three feet wide by six feet long, lined it with pond liner, and set it up on a picnic table at a very slight slant so the depth of water changed. It created some really cool shots.
If you have a pond supply place, pumps and pond liner are readily available. If not, our local Home Depot has a section (usually best stocked in the spring). I picked up a 10x10 foot sheet of pond liner there pretty cheaply. If you’re traveling and want a drip, it’s super easy to put a few sticks on the ground, lay the pond liner over them and create a tiny pond on the spot. Other sticks strategically arranged can disguise the liner material quite nicely.
1/4" irrigation tubing and associated fittings work superbly for the drips and I met some people in a campground in Texas that attached the mister fittings and some birds just adored them.
If anyone has additions to make, have at it.