Bird of the Month: House Finch

Male (left) and female (right) House Finches. Photo by Jeff Bryant.

By Roger Digges, CCAS Vice-President

You would not have found November’s bird at a local feeder in 1940. Indeed you would not have found it anywhere within a thousand miles, except in a few bird cages in pet shops on Long Island. So how did they get here?

Some of these small finches were captured in their native habitat in California and shipped east to be sold in the Long Island pet shops as “Hollywood finches.” But when storeowners found out it was illegal to keep these birds as pets under the 1918 Migratory Bird Act Treaty, and rumors circulated that the newly organized U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was vigorously enforcing that act, shopkeepers let them go, enough birds that they successfully began breeding in the wild and expanding their range. By the 1960s, they were spotted in Pennsylvania. In the 1970s, a few had found their way to central Illinois. Today, if you have a suitable bird feeder and stock it with black oil sunflower seeds, you will usually attract flocks of what your bird guide calls House Finches. These birds occupy Champaign County, and most of the contiguous United States, year-round.

House Finches are a little larger than goldfinches and smaller than House Sparrows, both birds you will probably see at your feeder. Males have reddish faces and breasts with streaks on their sides and bellies. The redder the male, the more successful he is in attracting a mate. Females are brownish with thick brown streaks on their tan undersides. A somewhat similar but much less common finch may also visit your feeder: Male Purple Finches have raspberry red heads and breasts with less streaking and somewhat larger beaks. Female Purple Finches have breasts similar to female House Finches, but they bear a distinctive white eyebrow stripe, which distinguishes them. If you are fortunate enough to attract a Purple Finch, you will usually only see one or maybe two.

Besides at feeders, you may find House Finches in parks, yards, anywhere with trees. They are common and gregarious. House Finches nest in trees and on buildings, using vents, ledges, street lamps, ivy, plants—they aren’t picky. Females lay 2–6 eggs, and often more than once a season, and incubate them for about two weeks. Hatchlings stay in the nest for two to three more weeks. 

In general, House Finches are doing well, perhaps too well as far as Purple Finches are concerned. In some areas, House Finches have partially displaced the native bird, which has suffered a 32% decline between 1966 and 2019, and has a population of 6.5 million compared to the House Finch’s 40 million. However, House Finches have their own challenges. In the past 30 years, some populations of House Finch have developed mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, a disease that most noticeably causes red swollen eyes and may lead to an eye crusting over. If you see a House Finch with this illness, take down all your feeders for a few days to allow birds to disperse, and clean them thoroughly (dishwasher or soap and boiling water, diluted bleach solution or vinegar solution [10%]). As bird lovers, we need to protect them from this potentially blinding disease, and, yes, so we can continue to enjoy them. I should mention that in 20 years of feeding House Finches, I’ve only seen one case. But it was heartbreaking.