This week’s bird is the house finch. Originally native to Mexico and the southwestern US, it is now a year-round native throughout both countries, including on Hawaii. The house finch has shown itself to be very adaptable, and the National Park Service estimates the population to be at least in the hundreds of millions. The house finch was introduced to the eastern US in the 1940s, when a pet shop in New York City tried selling them as pets called “Hollywood finches.” In order to avoid getting in trouble with the law, the shop and patrons released the birds, leading to their successful distribution throughout the continent.
The male finch’s color comes from the berries it eats, so females are on the lookout for partners with the deepest red or yellow coloring. These are colors which the bird is incapable of making on its own, they are a direct reflection on its ability to successfully forage and be a suitable mate. The house finch mating display consists of the female tapping the male lightly on the beak with hers, after which she acts like a hungry fledgling. The male will pantomime feeding her several times before actually doing so. On an unrelated note, the WPT is committed to not kink-shaming. Female house finches build nests in natural and artificial cavities, including nests abandoned by other birds. House finches breed prodigiously. The adult male will continue to provide food for them for up to two weeks while the female gets down to laying a second clutch of eggs and a pair may raise three or more broods per season. Young leave the nest after 12-15 days. House finches are fairly rare in that they feed their young exclusively plant matter, specifically regurgitated seeds. Most birds that are vegetarian as adults will eat insects while very young to kick-start their growth with concentrated protein. Adults eat berries, seeds, buds and nectar. They also eat the occasional aphid, but I wasn’t able to find out if this is on purpose or just incidentally while eating things on which an aphid is likely to sit.
There wasn’t a whole lot out there on our colorful new friend, and I looked hard enough that I found sites linking back to sites I had already checked. So here it is, all I could find on the adaptable, busy-gettin’, bird feeder monopolizing house finch. Have a good weekend!
Links: https://tinyurl.com/rbh8xahe, https://tinyurl.com/39n5w729, https://tinyurl.com/mdp9abtd, https://tinyurl.com/4swd2jaz, https://tinyurl.com/39khfj5p
