Purple Finch Pair
On a sunny, windy, chilly day, the rose-red blush of a male Purple Finch glowed among bare gray limbs. He was perched on a feeder in the front yard, with a brown and white streaked female on the same feeder just below him. The female’s bold white and brown face pattern – especially the big white stripe that arcs over the eye – and the short dark streaks on her breast were distinctive.
And the male’s color really is almost indescribable, hypnotic. A soft raspberry-red that spreads over head and back and throat and down the upper breast, with very little streaking on the sides at all, mostly smooth. The red feathers on the top of his head were slightly ruffled up.
The male leaned down and the female turned her head upward – but what I thought was going to be some kind of affectionate exchange turned into a snap and short lunge by the female – and he flew off to somewhere among the branches overhead, out of sight. The female stayed on the feeder for several minutes, eating and chasing away goldfinches and titmice that tried to join her. Then I noticed a second female Purple Finch on the other feeder in the yard. This is unusual – I have rarely seen them here. We have an abundance of House Finches in the neighborhood, year-round, but when a Purple Finch shows up, it’s a special occasion.
Later I saw a male and female Purple Finch again, this time perched close together in branches over the feeder, which was busy with goldfinches, titmice, chickadees, Chipping Sparrows, a Yellow-rumped Warbler and two Brown-headed Nuthatches coming and going.