A furloughed worker has tackled his lockdown boredom by creating an 'ingenious' Five Guys fast food diner - for the birds in his garden.
Mick Rose has been 'keeping the creative juices flowing' with his crafty hobby and after a picnic table for squirrels that he made proved a viral hit, he felt compelled to up the game this time around.
Using a wooden pallet and bits of old fence panelling, along with spray paint and a stencil, the 48-year-old created his own 'Five Birds', which now hangs proudly in his back garden in Kings Norton, Birmingham.
Images of robins and blue tits enjoying their new 'fast-food joint', which took three days to build, proved a hit on social media as they attracted more than 2,200 likes and comments.
Advert
The stockroom worker's ambitious project took three days to complete but Mick says the task provided some relief from the lockdown blues, explaining: "During lockdown I've had to try to keep myself busy.
"[The squirrel picnic bench] inspired me to come up with some other different, quirky sort of feeder that I can put up in the garden and up the game a little bit.
"It's been challenging. I've had to look at what wood I've got and what paint I've got. I was going to do McDonald's but I didn't have yellow paint - so I did Five Guys instead.
"We had the idea of calling it Five Tits, but we thought that wouldn't be appropriate when the rest of the family came round."
Mick's wife Donna Rose, 40, bought him a hydraulic blade bandsaw for his birthday in September and that's made it much easier to cut his wood to size.
Advert
He made the base and the Five Birds 'counter' from a wooden pallet then sawed a trough shape into the top so he could put nuts and bird seed inside.
Leicester-born Mick then used cardboard to cut out a stencil so he could spray paint the lettering and the chequered Five Guys branding onto the pallet.
He said his didn't make any drawings to outline the idea, but instead he just looked around the garden to see what he could work with and then started improvising.
Mick said: "I don't really work on any plans or anything. I just sort of make it up as I go along and to an image I've got in my head.
Advert
"I just kept adding little ideas, like for the burgers I got a strip of dowel wood from in the garden, cut little slices off it and found some paint that was sort of burger coloured.
"For the till, I just carved it out of a block of wood from a pallet and then I had some silver paint so I thought I'd add the hot plate and the backsplash.
"We're doing the garden up at the same time and my friend dropped off some spare pallets before lockdown, so I didn't even have to leave the house to get anything. I'm really proud of how it ended up."
And Mick says building the bird feeder has helped combat lockdown-induced anxiety, adding: "A lot of people, if they're not doing anything and not working, it would affect them badly, but with this woodworking I've enjoyed my time so far to be honest.
Advert
"It's been an escape for me. I've not really had a day of rest since we started [lockdown], whether that be working in the garden or doing some photography.
"I think i'm quite a creative person, so I like anything that gets my creative juices flowing."
While he can't go out to shoot landscapes work with models for his Instagram page m.s.r_photograghy, he's been grabbing photos of robins and blue tits stopping off for a bite to eat.
Mick said: "I really wanted to get a photo of the feeder with a bird on it, so I literally sat there in a camouflage shirt and waited for them to come along.
Advert
"We get quite a lot of robins and blue tits in the garden anyway so it didn't take long."
Since taking the photos, he's removed bird seed from the 'menu' because pigeons keep eating it all, so he's stuck with the nuts to attract a clientele on robins and blue tits instead.
No seasoned fries though? Come on Mick...
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and MediaTopics: lockdown, Community, Animals