Male house finches share a splash of color
Houstonians might be pleasantly surprised to see a plump, sparrowsize, reddish-headed bird with dense brown streaking at their backyards bird feeder, singing a raspy yet bubbling melody.
This is a male house finch, whose stubby, conical beak provides superior seed-cracking abilities.
While female house finches elicit less attention, with brown plumage marked by blurry brown streaks over a dull gray-white belly, the male has a red headband like a bandana, a red chin and throat like a bib, and a red swatch on its rump. Occasionally, they will sport yellow in place of red.
The male’s coloration derives from seed carotenoids that are metabolized as feather pigments that range from reds to yellows, which in turn vary from a vibrant hue to a sapless shade. Causes of color variation, though not fully understood, are related to genetics. Color saturation during breeding in spring and summer is obviously richer than during nonbreeding in fall and winter.
Although house finches now commonly occupy Houston’s backyard bird feeders, they haven’t always done so. Prior to 1988 I remember spotting them in the Texas Hill Country, but not here. The story of the bird’s range expansion is fascinating.
The birds originally occupied Mexico and
House finches made an amazing range expansion in the 20th century. They are a common sight at area bird feeders.
eventually moved into America’s Southwest, places like Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California.
Prior to the 1940s, unscrupulous cagedbird traders captured a group of house finches in California and sent them to pet stores in New York City to be sold as “Hollywood Finches.”
Knowing they could face criminal liability for illegal bird trade, New York pet stores set the finches free around 1939. The freed birds survived and produced offspring whose progeny spread from the eastern United States to the Midwest, where they met up with southwestern house finches that had begun pushing eastward.
Houston’s house finches are descendants of the New York “Hollywood Finches” that moved westward and ultimately met their southwestern kin moving eastward into Central Texas. Both groups of finches now occupy the entire state, except for South Texas past Corpus Christi.