Another winter storm, another head cold, and another week's packed schedule means... more time spent window birding! It's been a weird winter for me bird-wise, with rain and subsequent floods preventing access to a couple of my favorite local birding spots, and a bevy of other obligations to keep me from venturing afield very often. But, the birds in the yard have been particularly good this winter, as Oak Titmice, Lincoln's Sparrows, Bushtits and Purple Finches have been more common and numerous than in past years.
In other parts of the country, particularly the Northeast, the Winter Finch Forecast is a big deal for birders, who eagerly await annual predictions regarding a handful of nomadic species whose movements depend on the success of cone and berry crops. (Will this year be a good year for redpolls? What about crossbills? Or Pine Grosbeaks? Check the Winter Finch Forecast to find out!)
Here in Central California, we can only dream of redpolls, crossbills and grosbeaks. But the few winter finches that we do have - House Finches and goldfinches - seem to be a little more consistent, with the exception of irruptive and unpredictable Pine Siskins, which in winters past have been abundant here - though this year I have yet to see or hear a single one.
Besides the Pine Siskin, our only other expected "winter finch" here is the Purple Finch, the male of which looks as though he has been dipped in a beautiful red raspberry sauce. And they have never been a particularly common backyard bird... until this winter, that is!
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| Male Purple Finch |
Telling a Purple Finch from the much more common House Finch can be a little tricky, but with some practice one can be picked out pretty easily. Once you're familiar with House Finches, it should be obvious when someone new pops in for a visit to the feeders!
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| Male Purple Finch (And yes, the ceanothus is already blooming in mid-February!) |
Purple Finches (above) are slightly larger and chunkier than very similar House Finches (below), with larger, straighter bills. Male Purple Finches are more uniformly washed in a rich, vaguely purplish raspberry red, while the red of House Finches is more restricted to the head and chest, and usually tends more toward a true red (though the color varies and can look anywhere from raspberry pink on some individuals to very orange on others). While both male and female Purple Finches have stronger facial patterns than House Finches, male Purple Finches lack the streaked flanks of House Finches; female Purple Finches have more crisply streaked flanks than those of female House Finches. If you can, take a peek at the undertail coverts of both species: those of the Purple Finch will be white and unstreaked, while those of the House Finch will be marked with fine brown streaks.
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| Male House Finch, for comparison |
In the western U.S., Purple Finches breed on the western slopes of California's Sierra Nevada, as well as in coniferous forests across the Pacific Northwest where their rich, warbling song can often be heard drifting down from high in the treetops.
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| Enjoying a snack of black oil sunflower seeds from the feeders outside the window. |
Like other finches, Purple Finches are seed-eaters, equipped with large bills perfectly designed for cracking the hard shells of conifer seeds and, at the feeders, sunflower seeds. In their forest homes, they also readily consume buds, berries, and the occasional insect.
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| Male Purple Finch, sheltering from the rain in the ceanothus outside the kitchen window! |
Until spring comes and these two head back up to the mountains, it looks like they'll be pretty content hanging out in the trees and shrubs around our yard! What a beautiful bird to watch from the kitchen window, huh?
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| Female Purple Finch, showing off her striking facial pattern - a dead giveaway that this is not a House Finch! |
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