Finch bird free#

Invasive status aside, it sounds like a perfect plant - fast growth in dry to moist sand, loam or clay, in sun or shade, flowers that attract hummingbirds and insect pollinators.Adaptable, colorful, and cheery-voiced, House Finches are common from coast to coast today, familiar visitors to backyard feeders.

Tatarian, Bell's, Morrow's, and Amur honeysuckles are invasive. They send up suckers, often forming colonies. Diervilla honeysuckles grow no higher than three feet, have toothless leaves, and berries for fruit. (Diervilla lonicera is the native species. The reds of cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and scarlet tanagers also come from diet, not necessarily including bush honeysuckle, although those berries will brighten colors.īush honeysuckle, an invasive, nonnative plant, grows easily in Minnesota, according to the University of Minnesota Extension Service. Other bird species show carotenoid colors. The white stripe above the eye of white-throated sparrows might have an accent dash of red. Yellow-breasted chats can become red-breasted. In late winter or early spring the brown tips have worn away, and birds beginning their second spring have feathers of maximum brightness, Hill wrote.īush honeysuckle berries give orioles a deep orange color instead of yellow. 'When first grown, feathers with carotenoid pigmentation are tipped with brown, reducing overall intensity of plumage coloration,' according to ornithologist Geoffrey Hill, author of the house finch monograph written for the 'Birds of North America' series. A few females will show pale yellow/red marking. Male house finches vary in color from pale yellow to bright red, color mostly on the crown, eyebrow stripe, throat, breast and rump, with intensity of color varying. In house finches, yellow, orange or red feathers can appear as singles, or in patches on the bird, or can be mixed. If timing is right, the berries can color the replacement feathers produced by molt in the fall. Bush honeysuckle berries are a good source of carotenoids. In addition, a particular component of a bird's diet can do strange things if eaten during molt. Given the speed at which the finches empty our seed feeders, I'm surprised the birds don't glow. In the case of house finches the food is sunflower seed. A wide variety of plants, algae and bacteria contain the chemical. These also give color to ripe tomatoes and autumn leaves, among other plant products.Īnimals cannot synthesize carotenoids, so they get it from what they eat. The key to color is plants containing the chemical carotenoid, a yellow, orange, or red fat-soluble pigment.

House finches also are among many bird species whose feathers are randomly colored red, orange, and yellow by what they eat. The birds are semi-migratory, numbers decreasing in winter. Janssen calls it the most rapid statewide invasion of any species known in Minnesota. Minnesota's first house finch was recorded in 1980 at a feeder in Minnetonka, according to Robert Janssen's book 'Birds in Minnesota.'īy the 1990s house finches had been seen in each of our 87 counties. That population, readily adapting to city life and bird feeders, spread east, eventually arriving here.

Finch bird free#

And there is an introduced population in the eastern half of the country.Ī small number of house finches was set free on Long Island in 1940. There is a native population on the West Coast, finches comfortable in open undisturbed desert as well as cities. They have nested in the hanging flower pots on front porches, for instance. They are fond (understatement) of feeders, and nest readily around and on buildings. They would willingly trade an empty lot filled with grasses and bushes and trees for a nice new house with a bird feeder. House finches are the perfect urban bird.