House Finch

House Finch, male

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House Finch, female

House Finch eggs

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Conservation Status
4. Other Names
5. Cool Facts
6. Full detailed species account

A bright red and brown-striped bird of the cities and suburbs, the House Finch comes readily to feeders. It also breeds in close association with people, and often chooses a hanging plant in which to put its nest.

Description

• Medium-sized finch.
• Male bright red on head, chest, and rump; female brown and striped.
• Bill short and thick, with rounded top edge.
• Two thin white wingbars.

• Size: 13-14 cm (5-6 in)
• Wingspan: 20-25 cm (8-10 in)
• Weight: 16-27 g (0.56-0.95 ounces)

Sex Differences

Male red, female grayish brown with stripes.

Sound

Song a hoarse warble that goes up and down rapidly. Call note a sharp "cheep."

Conservation Status

Common and benefiting from human development. Eastern populations cut in half by eye disease in the last decade. To find out more about this disease and learn how you can help track it and its effects, go to the House Finch Disease Survey home page, or here for an article on the topic from Birdscope. You can help scientists learn more about this species by participating in the Celebrate Urban Birds! project.

Other Names

Roselin familiar (French)
Gorrión doméstico, Gorrión común, Gorrión mexicano (Spanish)

Cool Facts

• The House Finch was originally a bird of the southwestern United States and Mexico. In 1940 a small number of finches were turned loose on Long Island, New York, and they quickly started breeding. They spread across the entire eastern United States and southern Canada within the next 50 years.
• The red or yellow color of a male House Finch comes from pigments that it gets in its food during molt. The more pigment in the food, the redder the male. Females prefer to mate with the reddest male they can find, perhaps assuring that they get a capable male who can find enough food to feed the nestlings.

• When nestling House Finches defecate, the feces are contained in a membranous sac, as in most birds. The parents eat the fecal sacs of the nestlings for about the first five days. In most songbird species, when the parents stop eating the sacs, they carry the sacs away and dispose of them. But House Finch parents do not remove them, and the sacs accumulate around the rim of the nest.

Sources used to construct this page:

Hill, G. E. 1993. House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus). In The Birds of North America, No. 46 (A. Poole, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.