Secrets to Attracting Flocks of Happy Finches to Your Yard

Male Purple Finch (a/k/a Raspberry Finch)

Such energy and color!  I love finches: goldfinches, house finches, purple finches, crossbills, red polls, evening grosbeaks, and pine siskins.  They range from greens, to yellows, to oranges to raspberry red, and they have wonderful liquid songs that uplift the spirit.  You cannot help but be happy when finches are around.

On top of that, they eat a ton of weed seeds!  Their favorite seeds come from the thistle, also purple cone flowers, iron weed, dandelions, asters, cosmos, zinnias, and of course, sunflowers.  Once in a while they will eat a bug, but they are granivorous as a rule.

People so enjoyed their color and lovely songs that purple finches and house finches were once sold as caged birds!   To please either of these finches, plant cherry trees.  House finches in particular have a sweet tooth.  When hummingbirds aren't looking, they will steal some of their nectar! 

American Goldfinches Male and Female, Mourning Doves in the foreground.
by Grandma Pearl

American goldfinches delay raising a family until late summer to coincide with the ripening of the seeds they love.  They feed only seeds to their young, rather than any bugs or protein.  Their song and color is so beautiful that they are known as 'wild canaries'.  In the wintertime, they burrow under the snow for insulation against the cold.

This winter I have had mixed flocks of finches that have numbered in the hundreds!  I know because I participated in the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, as I do every year.  I'm sharing my secrets for finch success so that you may enjoy the colors and music of these awesome little birds.

Goldfinches in their winter plumage, lining the tree branches, waiting their turn at the feeders.
by Grandma Pearl

The Best Feeders for Attracting Colorful Finches:

• Nyjer (Thistle) Tube-style Feeder       
• Sunflower Tube-style Feeder               
• Ground Tray Feeder                                        
• Platform Feeder                                               
• Gazebo-style Feeder                                                     
• Fruit Feeder                                                       
• Basket Feeder   
• Heated Bird Bath or Fountain--Finches are 'heavy drinkers' year round, and need a constant open water supply  to help digest all that plant fiber.  They also love to be clean, and bathe often.    

Male House Finch enjoying a sunflower seed.
by Grandma Pearl

These little finches love to swing as they pluck seeds from this easy-to-make Basket Feeder
by Grandma Pearl

Best Foods for Attracting Finches:

• Nyjer (Thistle) seed
• Black Oil Sunflower seed
• Peanut Hearts
• Suet
• White Proso Millet
• Fruit
• Cracked Corn
• Rock Salt or Salt Block
• Sugar Water (hummingbird nectar)

If you only have room for one or two feeders, or your bird feeding budget is small, choose the tube-style feeders:  one for thistle seed and one for black oil sunflower seed.  You may also wish to add a heavy dish in which to put a few small pieces of apples that have been coated in sugar water.  What a treat for your finches to enjoy when it's cold outside!

A block of salt placed on the ground, or a handful of rock salt scattered under the feeders, will also please your chatty little finches.  You can also toss handfuls of sunflower seed over the snow.  As they forage, they will pick up water from the snow to help with their digestion.

American Goldfinches foraging for sunflower seeds in the snow.
by Grandma Pearl

All birds need a source of grit, or tiny stones that they use in their crops to help grind up their food.  They don't have the stomach acids we do, so that is how their food is broken down for use in their bodies.  You can find a small bag of bird sand or grit at the pet store.  It's an inexpensive way to help out all your birds, especially in the wintertime when snow covers the ground where they would normally find the fine grit they need.

Make sure to keep your tube feeders very clean.  If you should find mold in the seed tubes, dump them out immediately.  Then clean your feeders with a solution of 9 parts of warm water to 1 part of household bleach.  This will kill any bacteria that would otherwise cause harm to your birds.  Make sure the tube feeder is thoroughly dry before refilling and re-hanging.  By the way, a long-handled narrow brush is useful for cleaning tube feeders.

Mold is also a sign that birds are not eating as much seed as you have put out.  Try starting with a smaller amount of seeds in a tube feeder until your finch flock expands as the word gets out around the neighborhood!

Also, don't allow seeds to accumulate under the feeders.  Mold and bacteria from droppings can develop.  Finches love to forage on the ground, and you don't want them to get sick or worse.  I use a leaf vacuum to suck up all those spent bird seeds shells; then I toss them into the garbage.  It isn't wise to use them as compost because sunflower seeds in particular do not get along well with other plants.  In short, they poison them, which can cause some nearby plants to be deformed or die altogether. 

Enjoy your fascinating flocks of finches.  I guarantee they will put a smile on your face!

Grandma Pearl  

Finches Come in all the colors of the rainbow

 Flocks of Finches

Make An Easy Basket Feeder

Easy Ways to Landscape under Bird Feeders   

How to Make Your Own Suet

The Importance of Providing Water for Birds

What's the Difference Between a Purple Finch and a House Finch?

Male Purple Finch and Male House Finch Share the Same Tree
by Grandma Pearl

Just 2 days ago I was fortunate enough to notice both a male purple finch and a fledgling male house finch sharing the same tree branches.  If you look closely, you can see some of the differences in coloration and where it occurs on each bird.

Male purple finches (he's on the upper left side of the above picture) have a bright raspberry colored head, chest and rump.  When the sun's rays strike that rose hue just right, you're hit with the most beautifully intense rose red that is amazingly vibrant. 

House finches sport a brown patch behind their eye, and they have a brown upper back and wings.  Brown streaks mark the house finch's chest, while the male purple finch has no brown streaks on its chest.  Male house finches show a more reddish-orange coloration, which can vary through the orange shades and into the yellow spectrum, depending upon how many carotenoids they have ingested from their food. 

Their neck and upper chest, rump and stripe above the eye, and forehead are all orange.
Note, too, the difference in the tails.  Purple finches have a more deeply notched tail; house finches have a more square-shaped tail with just a slight notch.

The lovely warbling songs of the purple finches always brighten my day, especially when springtime is at hand.  House finches, on the other hand, have a less harmonious song, I think, than the purple finches.  It is, however, joyful and as bright as their warm orange color.  Both of these finches are very close in size, with the house finch being just a tad smaller at about 5-3/4 inches.

In both the purple finch and the house finch, females are heavily streaked.  House finch females are a lighter shade of brown with a brown head.  Purple finch females have a white streak behind their eye and a brown patch on their cheek.

The little house finch fledgling in my picture is just learning how to fly by making short hops from bush to tree branch.  One of the first places I saw him land, albeit a little awkwardly, was the tube seed feeder.  There he perched and dined for quite some time.  Occasionally he traded one perch for another, but seemed to be comfortable on that feeder.
Grandma Pearl

Fledgling Male House Finch Enjoys Sunflower Seeds
by Grandma Pearl

Finches Come in All the Colors of the Rainbow
How Birds Get Their Colors
Rustic Bird Houses Made from Reclaimed Antique Barn Wood