Hey everyone, it's Bobby from LycoBirds, and as I'm recording this video in August 2020,
reports are starting to suggest that a large number of Purple Finches are moving south,
along with Red-breasted Nuthatches, which are considered honorary winter finches due to their
similar irruptive tendencies. So, it'll likely be a good fall and winter season for those species
in Pennsylvania, and other eastern states where the numbers can fluctuate. So keep an eye out.
It's hard to say whether other finches will follow as well such as Pine Siskins, Common Redpolls,
crossbills, etc., but stay alert just in case those start moving south as well. With that in
mind, I thought I'd do a quick refresher on how to identify Purple Finches versus House Finches,
since those species are often confused. I'm actually going to start with the female-type
plumage, since those are easier to separate. So, here's an example of a female purple finch,
and one of the easiest field marks to look at on here is the facial pattern.
Notice that Purple Finches have more prominent white patches on the face, particularly the
eyebrow area, and House Finches do not show that. So, if you're trying to separate between them,
that's a great place to start. And we can see the same thing from this angle. You have a
prominent eyebrow, here, that's white. Another field mark you can look at to help confirm
is the shape of the bill. So if you notice the upper side or the upper edge of the bill, here,
is pretty straight in Purple Finch, and as we'll see in a minute,
House Finches have very noticeable curve to the the upper edge of the bill.
You can see another example here. Still prominent facial pattern, even with lower
quality looks that should still be apparent. So even at you know a fairly significant distance.
And here we can see an example with several Purple Finches mixed in with some American Goldfinches,
and you can see on all of these, even though these aren't great angles, you can see the white eyebrow
on all of these birds. So let's compare that to a House Finch. So here's a female House Finch,
and as you can see there's no white patches on the face, and as i mentioned, the top of the bill
is quite curved. So, that makes this ID fairly straightforward.
Let's look at another example, and you can see again, even in the lower quality view,
it's a fairly plain face with no white patches.
So let's move on to the male plumage. [Adult] male Purple Finches are rarely
misidentified as House Finches, but the opposite occurs much more frequently.
Purple Finches have extensive raspberry coloring as you can see here, and you especially want to
look at the flank and the back area. You can see in this area, there's still that raspberry color,
but there's no brown streaking and on the back you can see there's still - and the upper side of the
wing here - there's still a pretty strong wash of raspberry color. House Finches are going to show
noticeable brown areas there, and particularly in the flanks, are going to be streaked with brown.
The Purple Finches, well you can see on this example: same thing. You have this strong
wash of the kind of the raspberry color, with no brown streaking in the flanks.
If we look at this example, you can see that Purple Finches often show a weaker version of
the female facial pattern. Instead of the white, they show more of a pink color against the darker
raspberry, but it's pretty much the same pattern. And you can see again on this one, the flanks are
kind of bathed in raspberry and no brown streaking. And one last example you can
see the same thing you have the raspberry color on top, the flanks are a little harder to see,
but you can still see there's kind of a reddish tinge here, so, again,
and on this example, the straighter bill helps to confirm that as well.
So, male House Finches lack that facial pattern, as i noted. You can see there's no real
eyebrow here and the cheek is kind of more of a brown color,
and the most noticeable thing is if you look in the flanks here you just have brown streaking.
There's not a hint of the raspberry color. The wings, here, as well, have...
they're just like brown, no red in them at all. And you can see that carries into here as well.
So, if we look at another example, here, this shows the flanks even better, and it's brown
streaking, and no facial pattern, you have a curved bill. And we'll do one more. Again,
same thing, you have brown in the flanks you have a pretty curved top of the bill. So,
even on the very vibrant House Finches, which can happen fairly frequently, they're very bright red
and make you think "Purple Finch" initially, but if you focus on the points that I just discussed,
you should be able to separate them without too much trouble. So, if you found this helpful
please like and subscribe, follow LycoBirds on Facebook, and i will see you next time.