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4.5
How do I love thee, oh Bird Lamp? Let me count the ways...Those would be the words spoken by my little Phoebes if they could talk. They used to build a nest on my front porch, but it appeared they were not coming back this year, nor did they come last year. Then I saw this lamp and knew I had to buy it. I bought two, actually; one for my front door, and one for the sunroom door. One night I was up at 2:00 a.m., working hard to finish getting our house ready to move in, so I installed the Avian Lamp on my front porch. By 4:00 a.m. I had put my tools away, and I went to bed. At 8:00 a.m. I got up and looked out the living room window, and there under the porch were a pair of Phoebes, and they had their nest half finished! They had obviously been at it since daylight. Periodically they would go over and alight on the back of the park bench on the porch, right under the lamp and look up at it. One kept flying up and landing on the lamp, studying the little bird sculptures on it. They were enamored with these little bird sculptures! Soon they had eggs, raised a brood, and the babies flew the nest. Now the Phoebes are back at it, and they areonce again studying the brides on the lamp. They never really quit looking at them. Each day they spend time near or on the lamp, keeping company with the little cast-metal birds. It is cute beyond words or description. Art imitates life, and life in turn imitates art!OK, enough of the story of love-sick Phoebes and my lamps, both front and back of the house. The lamps are absolutely beautiful, regardless of whether your birds think so. The lamps come unassembled, but they are brilliantly designed. There are rubber gaskets to seal them off from rain and wind, and get this: the company included EXTRA PARTS. Even extra birds! The birds screw onto their respective positions, but be careful. This is SOFT metal, and you can easily strip the threads where they join with the body of the lamp. I suppose they would actually break pretty easily if you twisted them too hard. Be careful not to twist them too hard!These lamps use the medium-sized base that you see on bulbs shaped like a candle flame. Chandelier bulbs, or whatever they call them, but not the small base. (Small base is like the little nightlights and Christmas lights of old, before LEDs) The medium sized base LED bulbs are easy to find at most places where you can buy bulbs, especially places with a broad selection like Target, Wal-Mart, or a big hardware store.The lamp produces a soft yellowish light, like old vintage tungsten bulbs, due to the tint of the globe. Everyone who walks past these lamps stops a moment to examine them, and everyone raves about how beautiful they are. I cannot think of another lamp with such an effect. The style is reminiscent of Art Nouveau. I like Art Deco, but I LOVE Art Nouveau. It’s just nearly impossible to find a lot of good examples of it, especially since it’s from over 120 years ago. But you don’t need a collection of it to appreciate this lamp. It’s enough all by itself. Installation is pretty simple, like nearly every wall-mounted lamp in existence, it has hardware for mounting onto a standard junction box, attaching three wires to the pre-installed wires inside the base of the lamp. Or if you have two wires, the third one grounds the device right on the mounting hardware. It’s not lightweight, but not really heavy, either. I recommend two people for installation; one to hold the lamp up and the other to connect the wires and put in the screws.Great outdoor lamp!
