This bird hung out with a house finch at my sunflower seed feeder. It looks like a house finch, but the coloring is not typical. What kind of bird is this?

Kenn and Kimberly: What you have there is a house finch with a fascinating color variation. Male house finches are usually marked with red, but sometimes those red areas are replaced with orange or yellow or some of both. The red pigment in the feathers is affected by what the finch eats, so there might have been deficiencies in the bird’s diet back when this set of feathers was growing in. If this individual continues to visit your yard, you may see it develop the normal red coloring the next time it molts new feathers.