Bird of the Week: House Finch

Species: House Finch, Haemorhous mexicanus

Family: Fringillidae

Sign: Virgo

Favorite hobby: standing guard while their companion enjoys a meal

Dear reader,

For Christmas, my friend gave me the incredible gift of a bird feeder, one that is attachable to a window, so you can very clearly see the birds that come and go. I put the feeder up before the end of last semester, struggling for an embarrassingly long time with the window screen. Once I was back in Portland after about a month at home, it was clear that the birdseed had been eaten and moved around while I was gone. A couple of days later, while working at the dining table, I happened to glance at the window and see two small birds, house finches, each perched on either side of the feeder. At one point, the male perched on the side of the feeder, facing the bamboo stalks behind it and looked around while the female ate more. A week later, my roommate sent me pictures of finches visiting the feeder again, their positions the same as before. I like to think that perhaps they are the same pair. Even from a distance, it is not hard to see the beauty of the house finch. They are known for the male’s rosy face, head, and breast; a color that fades into a light brown  continuing in streaks down their chest. The female house finches are very similar to their male counterparts, but without the red coloring. Instead, the light brown of the rest of their body extends up to their heads. Immature male house finches look like the adult females of the species. 

The lovely red color of the male house finch is in fact a result of its diet during the molting process, and depending on what it consumes, a male might have a more orange or yellow tint. The more pigment in their food, the more red they will become at the end of molt, and the more likely they will be to have a female choose them as a mate. The carotenoids—the pigment responsible for red, yellow, orange, and purple—are converted through enzymes in the house finch to red, a process which produces the red color in many birds. 

House finches reside year-round in most of the U.S., and their range extends down into Central America. They reside in all of the U.S., except a region including the eastern part of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Their range did not always extend this far, though: house finches used to live only in the western U.S. and Mexico. A small group was released in Long Island after a failed attempt to sell house finches as cage birds in 1940. Within the next fifty years, house finches spread across the eastern U.S. and southern Canada, bringing the population to what it is today. Similarly, the finches were introduced to Oahu at some point before 1870, and became abundant in Hawaiʻi by 1901. House finches tend to thrive in urban areas, like residential backyards, gardens, city parks, and the edges of forests. Like the northern cardinal from last week, house finches frequent bird feeders and love black oil sunflower seeds. They have conical seed-eating bills and notched tails like most finch species. They often move in flocks, so it’s not unlikely that a finch will return to a haunt with a large group. 

The house finches of the Reed campus have taken a particular liking to the stone on the outside of Eliot Hall and Old Dorm Block, so stay on the lookout during your walk to class. These gregarious finches are unmistakable for their long, warbling songs and their distinct rosy coloring.

Photo credits to Martina Nordstrand