Wildlife moment: House finches a common find in Washington

When I was a teenager and budding naturalist in southern California in the late 1960s, a small bird singing a bubbly song from its perch on a power wire caught my attention.

I used my parents’ binoculars and saw it had a reddish head and was sparrow-sized. Checking out the Peterson Western field guide from my high school library, I perused the color plates and identified it as a house finch. This was my first “life bird.”

Years later, after moving to the Yakima area, I found the house finch is as common here as in California. If you set out a feeder in your yard virtually anywhere in Washington, house finches will become a regular visitor. This adaptable, colorful and cheery-voiced bird is the most common bird in suburban yards in Central Washington.

WHERE AND WHEN: Almost every yard in Yakima with even a few bushes or trees will attract house finches. Even isolated ornamental plantings in downtown Yakima may have a pair of these birds. They are also common around farms and fields up to lower elevations in the Cascades.

HOW TO SPOT ONE: House finch males are easy to recognize — sparrow-sized and sporting a reddish head and breast. Occasionally the red is replaced by dull orange or even yellow, apparently linked to diet. Their flanks and bellies are streaked.

Females lack any red tones and are grayish brown and heavily streaked. These birds are very social, so distinctive males are usually present to make identification easier. Other similar finches in the Yakima area include the Cassin’s in dry-pine forests and the purple finch, an uncommon species in riparian woodlands. Males of both Cassin’s and purple finches lack flank and belly streakings and have other distinct features. A field guide can help sort out the distinctions.

CHOW TIME: The house finch bill hints at its diet. Like sparrows, the beak is stubby and cone-shaped, adapted for cracking seeds. Seeds, buds and berries make up the bulk of house finches’ diet. As house finches relish fruit, farmers with cherry orchards and vineyards absolutely loathe these birds and try to control losses by employing all manner of scare tactics: propane-fired boom cannons, nets over their crops, kestrel boxes, and even falconers hired to fly their falcons over the crops as a deterrent. These measures have only a tiny effect on finches; the birds remain abundant.

SOCIAL LIFE: In fall and winter house finches join in flocks, numbering up to several hundred, to search for weedy fields where they glean seeds. In early spring they return to their breeding territories in cities and farms, pair off and begin nesting activities.

The male sing a bunch, both to defend their territory and to attract females with their warbling song. The female builds the open-cup nest — in a small trees, tall shrub, ivy vines, a building or even an old, discarded nest — and lays two to six pale blue eggs, incubating them for about two weeks. Both parents help in feeding the young. The young birds leave the nest in just over two weeks. House finches are prolific breeders; they may raise three broods in one season.

WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW: Native to the Southwest, house finches are recent arrivals to the eastern United States. New York city pet shops had been selling these birds illegally in the 1940s. To escape prosecution, the pet shop owners released their finches. These birds not only survived but have prospered and spread throughout much of the eastern United States and southern parts of eastern Canada. They have spread west to meet their western kin on the Great Plains.

• Wildlife Moment, focusing on native wildlife, typically runs in Outdoors on the first Thursday of every month, with the cooperation of the Yakima Valley Audubon Society.