Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The House Finch

By: Tom Berg

Back yard birdwatchers are very familiar with one of our most common birds: the House Finch. These gregarious finches are easily attracted to all types of bird feeders, and they show up in good numbers all year long, even during the coldest days of winter. They like to forage in groups, and sometimes a whole flock will appear and crowd the feeders!

House finches have fairly small bodies, but they have large beaks which are common among seed-eating birds. Male house finches have characteristic red plumage on their head and chest, although females are mainly a dull brown with brown streaking on their breast. The red coloration of males comes directly from the types of food they eat during the molting process. Some individuals are redder then others, and some are orange or even yellow!

Although house finches can be found throughout the Midwest and east coast, they were originally strictly a bird of the western United States. In the 1940s, a number of house finches were released on Long Island, NY and began breeding. They have since expanded their population and colonized most of the eastern half of the US.

House finches are frequent visitors to backyard bird feeders, and one of their favorite foods is black oil sunflower seeds. In fact, they are mostly vegetarian and prefer to eat plant-based foods like seeds, small fruits and even leaf buds. When they can’t get sunflower seeds, weed seeds make up the bulk of their diet. They get along very well finding lots of different seeds in grasslands, forest edges and even in their native desert areas.

Surprisingly, house finches also feed their young the same seeds and plant foods that they eat, rather than feeding the youngsters insects and other protein-rich foods. Although this practice is rare among birds, it hasn’t hindered the house finch population one bit. There are an estimated 40 million house finches on Earth, and 76% of them live in the USA.

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