That tweet emanating from your backyard? It's a house finch. The crowds of birds flocking to your bird feeders? They're house finches. The birds building a nest in the cranny under your home's eaves? Again, house finches. And the birds who laid pale blue eggs in a completely different nest in the wheel well of your coronavirus-idled car? Yep, still house finches. Sometimes it seems like they're the only bird species in the wild.
While quite common throughout many natural habitats in the western United States, they're especially prevalent in urban environments. The males are more colorful than the females, who are drabber and lack the bright red plumage on their heads and torsos. With such a multitude of them, they seem to join rock pigeons and house sparrows as quintessential city birds, scraping by on mankind's limitless detritus.
So I wasn't overly excited a couple of weeks ago when I noticed a small female house finch eying the seeds in my Prescott feeder. She did seem warier, quieter, and less aggressive than the other finches noisily coming and going, but for the most part I thought, just another house finch.
The next day, it seemed that she or an identical bird would sometimes enter the feeder at the same time as other house finches. It's then that I realized that she was maybe half the size of her fellow gluttons. In addition, thanks to my camera's telephoto lens, I was able to observe some distinctive features: a sharp, pointy bill along with yellow edging on her tail and wing feathers. By George, with such dramatically different size, bill and coloring, I had a first-time guest: the pine siskin!
I was certainly on the right track when I thought she was a house finch, as the pine siskin is in the same extensive finch family. This group also includes another very common visitor to my seed feeder and birdbath, the lesser goldfinch. In addition, the flock of Cassin's finches that stopped by two years ago during spring migration are additional relatives. However unlike with all these other species, there doesn't appear to be a big difference in appearance between the pine siskin sexes.
As the days and weeks passed by, this one pine siskin was joined by another and then another; we were still under stay-at-home orders in Arizona, what else did I have to do but count three birds? I have no idea whether these individuals are migrating through or are full-time residents in the mountain forests of central Arizona. I'll just appreciate the honor of slowly being introduced to the entire Finch family tree, one bird at a time, without ever leaving the peace and safety of my woodland deck.
While quite common throughout many natural habitats in the western United States, they're especially prevalent in urban environments. The males are more colorful than the females, who are drabber and lack the bright red plumage on their heads and torsos. With such a multitude of them, they seem to join rock pigeons and house sparrows as quintessential city birds, scraping by on mankind's limitless detritus.
So I wasn't overly excited a couple of weeks ago when I noticed a small female house finch eying the seeds in my Prescott feeder. She did seem warier, quieter, and less aggressive than the other finches noisily coming and going, but for the most part I thought, just another house finch.
The next day, it seemed that she or an identical bird would sometimes enter the feeder at the same time as other house finches. It's then that I realized that she was maybe half the size of her fellow gluttons. In addition, thanks to my camera's telephoto lens, I was able to observe some distinctive features: a sharp, pointy bill along with yellow edging on her tail and wing feathers. By George, with such dramatically different size, bill and coloring, I had a first-time guest: the pine siskin!
I was certainly on the right track when I thought she was a house finch, as the pine siskin is in the same extensive finch family. This group also includes another very common visitor to my seed feeder and birdbath, the lesser goldfinch. In addition, the flock of Cassin's finches that stopped by two years ago during spring migration are additional relatives. However unlike with all these other species, there doesn't appear to be a big difference in appearance between the pine siskin sexes.
As the days and weeks passed by, this one pine siskin was joined by another and then another; we were still under stay-at-home orders in Arizona, what else did I have to do but count three birds? I have no idea whether these individuals are migrating through or are full-time residents in the mountain forests of central Arizona. I'll just appreciate the honor of slowly being introduced to the entire Finch family tree, one bird at a time, without ever leaving the peace and safety of my woodland deck.
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| Pine siskin in Prescott. |
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| Pine siskin in my Prescott seed feeder. |
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| Pine siskin in my Prescott seed feeder. |
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| Pine siskins in my Prescott seed feeder. |
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| Pair of house finches, left, with two pine siskins, right, in my Prescott seed feeder. Note the difference in size between the species. |
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| House finch with cactus flowers, Phoenix, 2016. |
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