One of the favorite birding accessories is a bird bath. And
nothing beats the ambience added by having a running fountain
in that bird bath. It adds a wonderful combination of beauty
and serenity to your backyard setting. But the sad fact is
that a fountain is often costly thing to install, and in many
locations is just not practical. While the stored water in
the fountain may suffice, you still need a power source to
run the fountain, and running electric power to many places
is difficult and expensive.
A great solution to that problem is a solar power bird bath.
As the name suggests, these units are powered by the sun.
With solar energy as the power source, there are no power
lines, no batteries, and little if any wiring to be done.
Just the soothing sounds of the running water bubbling
through the bird bath. And you can be as creative as you want
when it comes to placing one of these bird baths.
The electricity to run a solar powered bird bath is taken
from solar cells. These are typically packaged as small
panels that either mount directly on the bird bath or in a
remote box. These panels of photoelectric cells convert solar
energy to electrical power. A word of caution, though,
because they are powered directly from the sen, there will be
some parts of the yard that won't work so well. For example,
you can't hide one in a shady spot under a tree or the shady
side of your house, and on days that are quite overcast the
power from the solar cells will be inadequate as well. And
they will not run at night. But you can take solace from the
fact that those are the days you are likely to stay inside.
those are days you are less likely to be outside anyhow. To
help deal with some of this you can find fountains that have
a detachable solar panel that can be mounted remotely, so you
aren't restricted to only sunlit areas for the fountain
itself.
Here's an informational video showing one of these solar
powered bird baths in action.
Finally , in those parts of the country that freeze in the
winter time, pay particular attention to the manufacturers
instructions on operating these units in freezing
temperatures. It will probably be best to either drain the
unit or to move it to a basement or garage for the
wintertime.