writ­ten 6/17/24, updat­ed 6/27/25

Overview

Materials and Cost

Bird Bath Hold­er options:

• Pole-mount dish
• In-ground dish hold­er
• Deck rail-mount­ed dish
• Free-stand­ing hold­er
• Or just on the ground

Process

This orig­i­nal­ly start­ed as a bird­bath, but not only was it too small to be a bird­bath, but none of the ani­mals used it as that. They were more inter­est­ed in drink­ing the water, so now it’s a Wildlife Water­er. Occa­sion­al­ly, the cam­era aimed at it will catch a bird bathing in it

Schematic

Drill Holes in Upper Tray

Drill Holes in the plas­tic bird bowl (small­er holes for water pas­sage, big for the tube), and a notch for the pow­er cord.

You can place the water hose in the cen­ter or off­set depend­ing on your pref­er­ence

*3D Printer

Eas­i­est and cheap­est method if you hap­pen to own a machine

If using 3D print­er, I’d rec­om­mend this BOWL cus­tomized to your spec­i­fi­ca­tions (reduced the thick­ness). You can add a lit­tle notch for the pow­er cord.

When in doubt choose a dark col­or (pre­vents light pen­e­tra­tion which allows algae to grow). My design allows for the sys­tem to be eas­i­ly tak­en apart and cleaned. The rea­son there’s a reser­voir of water that hous­es the pump under­neath the tray is that offer­ing ani­mals tox­ic algae or fun­gus-infect­ed water can kill them.

Paint

If using clear saucers/bowl, paint out­er lay­er (use 3 or 4 lay­ers as they are so thin). Dark­er are bet­ter col­ors to pre­vent algae.

Note: Appar­ent­ly, birds are attract­ed to either their own plumage col­ors or for the shy birds, neu­tral col­ors like drab green, gray, and brown. Birds sup­pos­ed­ly dis­like white.

Assembly

Because I was using cheap saucers, I stacked them 3 or 4 deep (for strength). Then, the sub­mersible pump goes on the bot­tom. On top of that, place the drilled bowl to cre­ate sep­a­ra­tion from the motor, pass­ing the tube and cords through their respec­tive holes

Fill with water

By the Power of the Sun

Con­nect the male USB of the sub­mersible pump to the female USB on the solar pan­el (or how­ev­er your pow­er hookup is) and test out the water flow.

Inter­est­ing Note: there must be enough light to start the motor, but sub­se­quent pow­er requires much less (physics!). Mean­ing, even though direct sun­light is need­ed to start the pump, indi­rect sun­light (part shade) is okay for con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion

Con­nect the cables

Pow­er!!!

Tube Orientation Options

• Cut the tube short­er
• Place a lit­tle aer­a­tor on the end and drill small holes in the top of the tube to cre­ate a sprin­kler effect
• No tube, just pure aer­a­tion

Long Tube — water cur­rent

With­out Tube — lots of bub­bles

Short Tube

Aer­at­ed Short Tube

The aer­a­tor is just a ran­dom thing I found out­side on the ground while walk­ing the dog. It just so hap­pens to be the right size and flex­i­bil­i­ty for the hose. If you look up “Rub­ber Sil­i­cone Round Plugs” you’ll see sev­er­al of them. Like THIS

Additions

Place dec­o­ra­tive rocks or plain rocks so that bees and small­er birds can perch safe­ly

Get (or 3D print) foun­tain noz­zles for fun sprays

Cleaning!!!

You MUST clean these! As stat­ed above, algae blooms are tox­ic to ani­mals. Sim­i­lar­ly, if too much debris rots in the water­er, fun­gus can also infect the ani­mals. Warm water and soap. If using rocks, I’ll brush them with a brush. Let them air dry, then return them to the crit­ters

Nasty algae. When clean­ing, my paper tow­el turned red. Red algae blooms are extreme­ly tox­ic. Not just for the wild crit­ters, but also my dog who likes to lick stuff all the time

Finished!