Finch Perfect

This is the week that the winter snow pack melted, all but the drifts, helped on its way by a day of relentless rain. Robins returned a week ago and Canada Geese, Trumpeter Swans and Sandhill Cranes are honking, trumpeting or bugling according to species and noisily letting us know that they are back. Things are changing. Spring is on the way.  

Life in the yard is changing too. The bird feeder, filled with sunflower seeds and hanging from the roof outside the kitchen window, is always busy with chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers and doves. This week saw the arrival of a crowd of Purple Finches, not unexpected at this time of year, but very welcome nonetheless. They squabble and jostle for space in a more or less good-natured way and call out with whistles of excitement or irritation or greeting, or all three, who knows? I could tell when they were present because I could hear them through the closed window from my desk while I was writing. They are lovely.

Roger Tory Peterson famously described the Purple Finch as resembling “a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice” and the appellation has stuck because it is so apt - for the males at least. Suffice it to say that these finches are not purple - few birds are - but shades of deep pink. Females and immature males, which don’t get dipped in anything, are a streaky brown. Both sexes have a perky little crest that they raise when they are excited (which seems to be quite often). At least half of the birds at the feeder are clearly males, but as these birds don’t molt into their adult plumage until their second year, it’s quite possible, or even likely, that most of them are males. Either way, here they are, brown and pink together, lively, neatly-feathered and brightening up the day.

Male Purple Finch photographed in the yard. This picture once won a very nice prize from Cornell University's Project Feederwatch photography contest that included a pair of binoculars that I'm still using today.

Purple Finches might visit our yard at any time (first of year was Jan 27), but they are commonest in spring and fall when flocks are migrating north. Most of them are headed for their breeding grounds in Canada, but we are within their breeding range too, albeit near the southern edge. They like coniferous and mixed woodland and although we are decidedly mixed, we have enough pine and spruce around to suit their needs. Some Purple Finches will choose our woods this summer as a fitting spot to raise their chicks. They sing a sweet, undulating song that to my ears sounds a bit defiant. They start early too - I heard on in the yard well before the snows melted and the current flock arrived. 

What makes a finch a finch? No doubt ornithologists could list a string of attributes, but to the ordinary bird watcher the obvious feature is the stocky, powerful bill. It is an adaptation for cracking open the tough seeds that form a large part of a finch’s diet. Finches also have a dextrous tongue that enables them to deftly remove the edible portion of a seed. As the bird feeder is so close to the window, I can watch the birds shelling sunflower seeds at close range. There the Purple Finches sit, half a dozen of them, their bills working methodically up and down as their tongues maneuver to extract the meat. The shell is discarded. They remind me of the people who can tie a cherry stalk in a knot with their tongue. (I cannot, but my husband can.) This way of feeding enables finches to dominate a feeder when they are present in numbers. Unlike a chickadee or a nuthatch, finches don’t have to give up their spot in order to break open a seed - they can just crowd around the feeder ports and chow down. It’s very effective. They remain in place while I watch until the resident Red-bellied Woodpecker swoops in and scatters them. But even he has to fly off with his seed. The chickadees nip in before the Purple Finches flutter back. The woodpecker will return - he’s top dog until the redheads arrive or the Blue Jays take an interest - and the scenario will repeat itself several times until the woodpecker has had enough to eat.

Female or immature male Purple Finch in an early spring snowstorm.

Springtime in Wisconsin - two steps forward, one step back. Barely had the snow pack yielded when flakes were in the air again and we had early morning snow cover twice before the week was out. The lake is still frozen although the ice looks a little sketchy. The ice fishermen are still braving it. Today (Friday) a fierce wind is whipping through. The snow flakes are falling yet again - although blowing horizontal would be a better description. The Purple Finches seem to have left or perhaps they are just hunkered down in the woods. I’m hunkering down myself, but I’ll be out for  a glass of wine tonight, the color of a Purple Finch. 

25 March 2022