House Finches – She chases, He backs off
Ever since the seeds were discovered by the house finches, the feeder is always in business. They particularly love the black oil sunflower and millet seeds then happily shove off the other seed mixes. I’ve read that they love the thistle seeds also but we would need to buy a particular feeder if we decided to add that in future.
Nowadays, we found not two but eight (probably more) alternately feeding. They fly, bounce and sit still when they crush the shell seeds. They love chasing each other and make different noises. A male house finch has a visible trace of red on the forehead, throat and breast. It has streaks on the flanks and grayish bill. The female house finch is plain in color, grayish brown and streaked overall.
I noticed that the female is more dominant than the male. Sometimes when the female is on the feeder it chases and intimidate the male to back off, as if telling the male that she wants the feeder all by herself. It’s weird because the feeder can accommodate minimum of two to three birds. I call her the bossy one haha. So the sadly disappointed male chooses to take the fallen seeds on the ground than have another encounter with the female. They look so funny.
I think the news had spread out and the finches cannot keep the feeder for themselves anymore, for we have other visitors – the house sparrows! I would love this feathered friend to visit us all the time too. The arrival of the sparrows caused more yelling and chasing. The finch gang chases the sparrows and at times the male sparrow pecks back but most of the time they just let the finches win. Also, several curios hummingbirds gracefully passed by to check what’s going on and leave disappointed not seeing any nectar syrup bottles hanging. Seeing them roaming our veranda gave us the idea of adding up a feeder for these fast flying friends. This will be noted on our next feeder to-get list.
Morning and right before sunset feeding, they will all chirp in chorus a cheery warble and mixed with all these indescribable sounds that are just so fun to listen and watch. I wonder if bigger birds will notice all this commotion and starts joining the feeding frenzy. Well, hopefully we’ll get visited by bigger types that have appetite for the seeds we offer and not appetite for finches and sparrows!
