Migrating finches returning to N.B.
Published Saturday May 2nd, 2009
We are indeed blessed to have several finches that call New Brunswick home.
They contribute pleasingly to the outdoor natural orchestra we all appreciate so much, especially as the birds start their spring housekeeping accompanied by their birdsong chatter.
Today let's pay a visit to the purple finch and the house finch.
The males of these two species are generously splashed with red while the females are dressed much more conservatively, lacking those distinct red blushes.
The purple finch has been with us for a very long time while the house finch is a relative newcomer, having joined us in an interesting way approximately 20 years ago
It did not take long for this species to decide what it found in New Brunswick was good and it has flourished, but more on its arrival route in a moment.
The male purple finch is quite content to bring its dash of colour and its rich, rapid, and spirited warbling song into our yards, parks, and woodlands.
It also has a taste for black oil sunflower seed and chipped sunflower and is a very common visitor to feeder yards in late winter, all summer and into late fall.
A small population will remain with us all winter as the majority ease a bit to the south for the cooler months of January and February, but at the first glimpses of moderating weather, they're back.
They have been returning in pleasant numbers the past few weeks, with the brilliant males arriving first and the female troupe soon afterward.
I'm not quite convinced the purple finch is appropriately named, as the male is definitely leaning more to red or even crimson, though some might argue for 'purplish red.'
The reddish head, back, rump, and breast of the male make it quite distinctive.
The purple finch seems to be equally comfortable in urban and rural areas so it can be spotted as easily in your backyard as a quiet woods hiking trail.
It usually prefers a conifer tree to build its twig-grass nest and young fledged birds can leave the nest in an amazingly short 27 days from egg to flying teenager.
The male is the singing bard of the family unit and will help care for the female and young on the nest.
The female dress is much more conservative, which attracts less attention to the nest cargo.
She lacks the red colouring and is simply dressed in brownish stripes and brown topcoat.
However, there is a readily seen white eyebrow, which distinguishes her nicely from the otherwise similar female house finch.
The purple finch tends to raise the 'hackles' on its head and neck for some reason, which the house finch tends not to do.
Also, the noticeably notched end of the tail of the purple helps to distinguish it from the more square-ended tail of the house.
The two species share the same dimensions (about six inches or 15 centimetres in length) and early origins, as both have been resident in western North America for a long time.
But in 1941, several pet stores in the New York City area started marketing a bird called the "Hollywood Finch."
In fact these were actually house finches which unscrupulous bird traffickers from the west had marketed to unsuspecting eastern North American pet store owners.
This, because the house finch is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty and thus, illegal to sell.
When pet store owners realized they had been cheated, the quandary of what to do with the birds was solved by many of these businesses simply by letting the birds go.
From this handful of released birds, house finches started to appear in the wild. The population spread out from the NYC area in all directions and the first to appear in New Brunswick arrived in approximately 1985.
From that point, a year-round population has established itself.
The house finch has adapted very well to the city slicker's lifestyle and is now a solid citizen of southeastern New Brunswick's urban areas.
They also have the same taste for black oil sunflower seed and sunflower chips as their purple finch cousins, so you'll see them at any local backyard feeder offering these items on the menu.
The house finch has turned out to be a welcome 'newcomer' with no significant negative effect on native birds.
It gets a very early start at housekeeping in the spring and can even go from egg to the flying fledged bird a few days faster than the 'fast' purple finch, so more than one fledged family per season is not at all unusual for the house finch.
The male house freely broadcasts pleasant rolling warbles which, while similar to the purple, are nonetheless distinguishable differs on close listening.
As for the red plumage of the house it, too, is similar to the purple but closer observation will show a brown cap and darker wings which, along with that square tail, distinguish it from the purple.
The house is also more liberal in its choice of nest sites. It may nest in a tree or shrub but does not hesitate to use a tree cavity or even unexpected spots such as an outdoor light enclosure or house decorations.
Our two resident "red" finches are welcome, pleasant members of our wild bird community as they join the summer symphony accompanying the arrival of the warm seasonal sun. In Brunswick, they make an already special season even more special to us all.
And yes, it's time to get those hummingbird feeders up.
Naturescope will pay a visit to that soon-to-arrive -- or perhaps already arriving -- community next Saturday.
* Nelson Poirier, from the Moncton area, is a veterinarian by trade and a naturalist by nature. His column appears each Saturday and he can be reached at P.O. Box 25091, Moncton, N.B. E1C 9M9 or e-mail nelson@nb.sympatico.ca.
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