The fruits they eat include berries from honeysuckle, blackberries and poison ivy as well as apricots, cherries, crabapples and juniper. They are fond of sunflower seeds, millet, buds and thistle. Purple finches eat mainly seeds and berries in winter and insects in summer including caterpillars, grasshoppers and beetles. If you have any coniferous trees in your backyard, such as pine, spruces, Douglas fir, cedar, juniper etc, you have a better chance of attracting them. Purple finches are ground foragers but will look for juicy buds and seeds in trees, weeds, berries, and insects. The oldest purple finch was found to be 14 years old. The average lifespan of the purple finch is 3 - 7 years. Male purple finches have plumage that ranges from grey to the rosiest of reds. This is due to the carotenoid pigments of the seeds and wild foods they eat, such as the American golden finch and the northern cardinals - and after they molt, the colours return even brighter. Check out the female purple finch’s white eye liner and dark bandit mask. The large bill gives them a larger-looking head. Males usually develop their rosy-red plumage after their first year. Many get confused with the house finch but the male purple finch is less streaked on his flanks, belly, chest and wings. The tail is short and bifurcated.Īdult females have light brown upper-parts and white underparts with dark brown streaks throughout. Adults have a raspberry color on the head, breast, back and rump. Purple finches are medium-sized, about 6 inches long and weigh 0.6-1.1 oz - about the weight of a pencil. Birds are natural and welcome pollinators - except finches whose whole-seed consumption leaves no “heritage” for the fruit or flower it pecks.įruit trees, though, although seeming to suffer damage from the purple finches’ “pruning,” may actually benefit from it, as the tree has a better chance of regrowth.

They eat the whole seed, preventing pollination. Their unique beak is large in size, and can reach the nectar without eating the flower or extracting the nectar from a nut. They breed in coniferous forests, mixed deciduous and coniferous woods. Purple Finches hail from Canadian territory in the northeast, as well as from the Pacific coast. Researchers say this movement is due to variability in the food sources of birds, i.e. Things are improving as the global population is now estimated to be about 3,000,000 individuals, covering about 3,000,000 miles of North American tree tops! Purple finches appear biennially, (every two years), down to as far south as northern Florida and Texas. Purple finches dominate the goldfinches but give way to the siskin. However, notice the “pecking order” at your winter bird feeders. When they are confronted with house finches, they usually lose out. The inspiration behind the poem, the purple finch, has indeed a lot to mourn, as the common finch is a serious threat to its survival.

Described by the famous saying of Tory Peterson, this finch looks like “a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice” - though I see more “dipped in a fine merlot” coloring. This is yet another bird with the wrong description in its name, as this bird is not purple but rather rosy-red. Their warbling from the highest of treetops as well as their warm coloring are a welcome sight and sound. Purple finches are a rare and welcome guest at our bird feeders. This poem is as beautiful as it is profound.

Purple finch house finch