Listen to the song of summer as you hear the glorious house finch singing, while he plays his cheerful song. Colorful as well as musical, the House Finch is common from coast to coast today. As a result, this makes for familiar visitors to backyard feeders.
Though native in the Southwest, recently the house finch has made an arrival in the East. As it seems, New York pet shop owners, who had been selling the finches illegally, released their birds in 1940 to escape prosecution. However, some of the finches survived, and because of this they began to colonize the New York suburbs. By 50 years later they had advanced halfway across the continent, meeting their western kin on the Great Plains.
House Finches are small-bodied finches with fairly large beaks and somewhat long, flat heads. The wings are short, making the tail seem long by comparison. Many finches have distinctly notched tails, but the House Finch has a relatively shallow notch in its tail.
When a male and female house finch is singing, their calls are a sharp cheep made often, including while perched and during flight. You may hear a sharper version of this call as the birds flush from the ground.
Adult males are rosy red around the face and upper breast, with streaky brown back, belly and tail. In flight, the red rump is conspicuous. Adult females aren’t red; they are plain grayish-brown with thick, blurry streaks and an indistinctly marked face
If you want to learn more about the house finch or hear clips of them singing, check out the Audubon website.
Video by Annie G – Oiseaux et nature