Bird Feeders

I've been feeding birds for a very long time. But I've always been cheap about it. I hate how much nice bird feeders cost, and always tried to get by with the cheap ones. I've always wanted a platform feeder, mostly to keep the larger birds off my other feeders, where they just make a mess. I really love blue jays, but on smaller feeders they just terrorize the other birds. Last time I caught myself staring at that kind of feeder my brain pointed out it's 4 pieces of 1/2 with some screen tacked on the bottom, and some eye screws to hang it with. Hence this was made out of scraps in my house. I expect the squirrels to chew through the screen at any time. Until recently I couldn't figure out how to get good pictures of birds in the yard, but not obviously on the bird feeders. I picked up another Digital Wildlife Photography book at the library, and the author had put photogenic landing spots around his feeders, for the birds who were waiting for an open feeder to perch on. You just had to focus on the perch and wait. Now the only problem is finding some pretty "natural" perches, that the dog won't destroy.