Horace Covered Feeder UK
“After a wet week, the bird table was a tray of grey porridge.” — The covered bird dish a retired Lake District roofer designed for winter seed and summer water, and why the last ones are now on sale at a special price.
Most bird feeders in Britain have the same weak spot: they are open to the sky. Rain soaks the seed, it swells and sprouts, and within a few days it is mouldy. In summer the same open dish turns into a warm, green puddle. The birds that need it most end up with nothing they can use.
It hits the ground-feeding birds hardest. Robins, blackbirds, dunnocks, wrens and song thrushes don’t hang off a feeder the way a blue tit does. They eat standing up, off a flat surface, which means a bird table, an open dish or the lawn, and in a British winter all three are wet most of the time. The UK has lost tens of millions of breeding birds since the late 1960s, and some of the most familiar garden visitors, the house sparrow, the starling and the greenfinch among them, are now on the Red List.
Horace Pendlebury spent his working life on roofs in the wettest corner of England. When he saw what a wet autumn did to his wife’s bird table, the fix seemed obvious to him: give the dish a roof of its own.
Left: November, rain running off the roof and the seed underneath still dry. Right: July, the same dish filled with water, cool and clean in its own shade.
Wet Food and Dirty Water Make Birds Ill
A wet feeder is more than wasted seed. Damp seed goes mouldy within days, and mouldy food is how garden birds pick up aspergillosis, a fungal lung infection. Damp, fouled food is also where trichomonosis spreads fastest, the parasite behind the collapse of the greenfinch, which has fallen by more than sixty per cent and is now on the Red List.
Then there is everything that drops from the branch above: droppings, wet leaves, bits of bark. In an open dish it lands straight in the food. In summer, an uncovered water dish turns warm and green within a day or two, and the birds stop using it.
A roof takes care of most of this. Food and water that stay dry, shaded and covered stay cleaner, and clean food and water are the single most useful thing you can do to keep disease from passing from bird to bird. You still rinse the dish each morning, but you are rinsing a clean dish, not scraping out a mucky one.
Garden birds don’t struggle in winter because nobody puts out seed. They struggle because the seed is soaked, sprouting or mouldy by the time they get to it.
The Weeks That Matter Most
Garden birds settle into a routine early. A robin picks its winter patch in the autumn and holds it until spring. Blue tits and coal tits fix their feeding rounds before the first frost and keep to them. A garden with reliable, dry food in November becomes part of that routine.
The weather is the reason. On a cold, wet night a wren or a robin can burn through close to ten per cent of its weight just keeping warm, and wet feathers make it worse. By first light it needs to refuel fast, and it goes straight to food it already knows is there and dry.
A Roofer’s Answer to the British Weather
Horace roofed cottages and farmhouses between Borrowdale and Bassenthwaite for forty-four years, from 1968 until he came off the ladders in 2012. In November 2013, he watched a robin sit on the wall and stare at his wife Maureen’s bird table, which had been a tray of grey mush for a week. That afternoon he folded a small roof out of sheet metal and hung a dish underneath it.
By the next downpour there were birds underneath, eating dry seed while the rain ran off both sides. In summer Maureen filled the same dish with water, and the roof kept it shaded and clean. The neighbours asked for one, then their families did.
He makes it in two shapes. The Umbrella has a ribbed canopy over a deep round dish and suits an open branch. The Cottage Roof has a pitched roof on four posts and looks right on a pergola or a wall bracket.
What the Roof Does
Before it goes in the box, every roof gets a last rub-down by hand with a soft cloth. The roof reaches well past the rim, so the rain drips land outside the dish.
Five reasons a covered dish works better than an open one:
- Shelter from rain, wind and sun. The birds eat and drink under cover. Rain runs off both slopes, sleet slides off the edge, and in summer the roof keeps the dish in the shade.
- Food stays dry, water stays clean. No soggy seed, no sprouting, no mould, no warm green water. What you put out stays usable for the birds.
- Nothing falls in from above. Droppings, wet leaves and twigs land on the roof, not in the dish, which makes it far more hygienic for the birds that use it.
- Ground-feeders finally get a seat. The dish is open and flat. A robin, a blackbird or a dunnock lands in it and eats standing up, off the wet lawn and out of the cat’s reach.
- One dish for the whole year. Seed from October to April, fresh water from May to September. Cleaning takes thirty seconds under the tap.
Give the birds in your garden a dry place to eat before the worst of the weather.
£52£35
Why Most People Hang Two or Three
Two roofs a few paces apart, sunflower hearts under one and mealworms under the other. In summer, water in one and seed in the other.
Blue tits and goldfinches go for sunflower hearts. The robin and the blackbirds would rather have mealworms, and a robin treats a dish as its own territory and will see off anything that tries to share it. With two dishes a few metres apart, the chasing stops and the garden gets busier.
One dish helps the birds in one corner of the garden. And because it works all year, dry seed in winter and a fresh, shaded drink in summer, two or three do far more. Hung a few metres apart near different hedges and shrubs, they give more birds at once a sheltered place to eat when it pours and clean water when it’s hot. That is why most people order more than one.
Where to Hang It
The best spot is about head height, within a couple of metres of a hedge, a shrub or a tree. Robins and dunnocks like to dart into cover when a sparrowhawk comes over, and they use a dish far more when the cover is close. Keep it well away from anything a cat could jump from.
An apple branch, a pergola beam, a shepherd’s crook or a wall bracket by the back door all work; the chain and S-hook go over any of them without tools. Pick a spot you can see from the kitchen window. In summer, the birds that come down for water are often ones you never see at a seed feeder.
What Turns Up
Maureen sends her counts in to the BTO’s Garden BirdWatch. On a good wet morning she has logged eleven species at one dish: robin, blackbird, dunnock, wren, blue tit, coal tit, chaffinch and goldfinch among them. In July it is sparrows, starlings and goldfinches coming down to drink.
His grandson Callum set up a small online shop for the last batch, and Horace set the price at £35. “A roof does nobody any good leaning against the workshop wall,” Horace says. “I’d rather see a hundred and eighteen of them out in the rain.”
There won’t be more after these. Arthritis in his hands means he can no longer grip the handle of the folding brake, so at the end of the summer he stopped. What is left are the roofs he cut before that. He still fits the dishes and chains at the bench, and Callum boxes them up. When they are gone, there won’t be another batch.
A reader near Kirkby Lonsdale, the day hers arrived. By the next morning she had a robin and two coal tits under the roof.
A hundred and eighteen left from the final batch.
£52£35
From Customers
“I’d given up feeding over winter because everything turned to mush within a day. Gave it one last go with this. Six weeks on, the seed is dry every single morning, and I’ve had a wren on the rim, which I’ve never once seen in this garden.”
“I bought it for winter seed, but I like it just as much in summer as a water dish. It stays in the shade and doesn’t go green like our old bird bath did.”
Common Questions
Is it for seed or for water?
Both. From October to April it’s a covered seed dish: the roof keeps rain, sleet and whatever falls from the branch out of the food. From May to September, swill it out and fill it with water; the roof keeps it shaded, cooler and cleaner.
Do squirrels and cats get to it?
Cats, no. It hangs free on its chain, out of jumping range. A determined grey squirrel can climb a chain, so if yours are acrobats, hang it from a washing line or a bracket away from the trunk.
How do I clean it?
Empty whatever the birds have left, swill it under the tap and hang it straight back. Once a week, use hot water and a brush. With no ports or corners, it takes about thirty seconds.
More From Customers
“We went for three because it’s a long, narrow garden. One by the hedge, one off the apple tree, one outside the kitchen. Different regulars at each, which we didn’t expect: chaffinches by the hedge, tits at the apple and the robin right by the back door.”
“Small, sturdy and it does exactly what it says: dry seed whatever the weather. I’ve already ordered a second one for my mum.”
Get a dry dish into your garden before the worst of the weather.
2 for £63.00 · 3 for £89.25 · 4 for £112.00 · Free delivery · 90-day money-back guarantee
DISCLOSURE: The owner of this site has a material connection to the products shown on this page. Please review the full returns policy before ordering. Testimonials reflect individual experiences and results may vary. Images are for illustration; because each piece is cut and finished by hand, the final product may vary slightly in colour and finish.
© 2026 · All rights reserved. · Legal notice · Privacy Policy · Contact