A small bowl in the Balcony or a pot on terrace or a small pond in your garden can be life savers for a bird and insects too.Small water bowls placed in the balcony or between the pots can be used by birds not only for drinking , but can be used by birds like Sunbirds for bathing.Below is a female sunbird bathing in the small pot placed in between the potted plants in your plant bed in the grills . This was again clicked by Yuwaraj Gujar in his balcony in thane (Mumbai City).

Even one can experiment releasing small fishes in the bowls placed on your terrace , for birds like Kingfishers. The bowls used should not be very deep and should be shallow , so that birds can safely use them and do not have the fear of drowning. Do not worry of Mosquitoes breeding in such waters, as nature very much takes all this care. Such a water bowl on the terrace or garden , can turn out as lifesavers to many of them , an entire ecosystem can set up around such water bodies , like pretty dragonflies can lay their eggs is such water, you never know which form of life has flourished. If the water is placed in small bowls in your balcony, please ensure that it is changed at-least twice a week or depending upon you observations. You can experiment by keeping different sizes of bowls, if you aim at small birds have small sized and lighter feeders as big birds can’t use them.

Below what you see is an Oriental White-eye is a small bird of sparrow family, also found in city like Mumbai and Delhi. This image was clicked by Yuwaraj Gurjar. Do allow some weeds or wild grasses to grow in your garden or pots, as they can be used by birds for their nesting material. We had personally got some naturally coloured grass from an hill station (Matheran, near Mumbai) and placed in our window sill which was happily used by the sparrow couple for their nesting material. We also had experience the same about some lemon grass which we had placed in the window sill. It is also observed that the large birds like crows and pigeons dominate the water bowls, to avoid this hang small and lighter weight water bowls. Personally birds like crow get lots of dry food like bread, chapatti, biscuits and dip them in the water bowls and then eat them, so be sure you clean such water bowls more frequently.