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The House Finch along with the Black-capped Chickadee
were the first comers to our yards. We did have a purple finch at our last yard but here
so far it is the house finch and in fairly large numbers to our feeders. We have one pair
that nests in our cedar tree my our bedroom window. I love listening to them in the early
morning hours during the warm months when the windows are open. The first year we had two
pairs here but as of late I can only spot one pair. They do come in droves to feed though.
The males are such a beautiful color and the some of the finch is so pretty. A couple of summers ago, I spotted a gold finch sitting on a fur tree
in the front yard. By the time I got the binoculars, he was gone so I was unable to
identify him at that time. I was able to only get glimpses of him
occasionally but I definitely wanted to lure these beauties to our yard. Last year after having added another
Hummer feeder to the backyard Rufous wouldn't let the other birds into the yard so we put
a thistle feeder and a sunflower feeder in the front so the finches and what have you
could feed. That did the trick, we have had gold finches every since. During the winter
this year, we had upwards to fifty at a time trying to get into the thistle feeder. I
believe we will have to add another and one with a lot more holes. They were voracious and
of course there are one or two bullies that spend more time chasing others off
than
eating the seed themselves.. They were so used to my husband coming and going, they hardly
stirred when he would come out the front door. One particularly cold day, he put some seed
in the cups of an egg carton and stood near the feeder which is directly in front of the
front window so we had a good advantage for the show. After only a few minutes of
waiting,
they started to come back to the feeder. There so so many waiting for space that in a few
minutes some were landing on the tray in his hand to feed out of the cups. They landed on
my arms and hands and on his glasses. The funniest moment though was when one landed on
his head. He did this for several days running and it was so very funny. We wanted to take
a picture but our camera has been broken for a while and we just haven't gotten it fixed
or replaced. It seems we always forget until we need it. This coming winter we will
definitely get a picture. It is so funny to see this guy standing out there covered with
birds. For the most part, both varieties of finches fed together at the same time but the
bullies were the gold finches. The chickadees fed from the sunflowers and the pinecones
but I have seen them at the thistle feeder when the sunflower seeds ran out. A couple
years ago we had several sunflowers growing in to front yard as a result of birds dropping
them in flight. They were quite large and I used the dried heads to decorate a window box
at Christmas. I used evergreen bough, halved fruit and the sunflower heads. It was quite
pretty and the birds loved their Christmas present. I would love to put a tree up in the
front yard and decorate it with edibles for the birds but since it rains here so much, the
items would not last very long before getting very soggy.
I would say that both varieties of finches and the
chickadees are probably the main residents of our yard and all three are very much
enjoyed. |
