Public drinking fountains don't retain water in the catch bowl (unless somebody's plugged it). Which is fine, even advantageous, given its purpose, but also rather species selfish.

The enhanced version for parks and backyards features a birdbath as the primary bowl, which overflows into a lower bowl for more ground-based fauna.

The bowls are kept topped up by a couple of tucked-away floats, and a bit of doohickery on a timer regularly overflows any flotsam out, and briefly opens the drain to allow sediment egress.

Add some small statuary, and an electrically driven pump for extra, recirculated founting (separate from the drinking spout), and it becomes aesthetic as well as functional.
-- FlyingToaster, Jul 16 2016

What a lovely idea. (Can't, however, get the image of a Labrador Retriever sitting there with a Sparrow's feather hanging out the side of it's mouth. out of me head. I know, I know, it's all filtered, but just saying...)
-- blissmiss, Jul 16 2016


Could the park model be augmented with solar?
-- whatrock, Jul 17 2016


//feather// Well, both bowls are kept topped up, so every time somebody (human) uses it, the excess water (while waiting for cold water to come out or whatever) overflows both top, then bottom bowls by that amount; so a feather will get floated completely out rather soonly. Even if nobody uses it, the fountain regularly runs by itself for a few seconds to do exactly that. ( very little water is wasted)

//solar// sure: the panel could be a sunshade, and it could also run the timer for the self-cleaning bit (which otherwise would be water-pressure driven).

//history... invalid... redundant// Feel free to post a link. A few pages of an image search tossed up one which might be vaguely similar, and another of a bulky cooler-fountain in a garden, converted to a birdbath of some sort. In both cases there wasn't enough (or any) text detail, just the image. But, I'll flash a NWKTE card, just in case.
-- FlyingToaster, Jul 18 2016



random, halfbakery