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Re: Purple Finches and Picket Road Goose



Russell and Ruth Roberson wrote:

>1.  We had three purple finches at our feeder last week, two males and
>one female.  These are the only purple finches we have seen this year.
>We had only one female last year.  We have the usual crowd of house finches.

----------

RUSSELL & RUTH . . .

Thanks for your posting to CarolinaBirds. Glad you finally got some 
Purple Finches.  :-)

I just wanted to mention that here in the Carolinas it is not 
possible to know whether you have female Purple Finches at your 
feeder. In February, the raspberry-colored birds are all adult 
(after-second-year) males, but brown birds may be second-year males 
or females of any age.

In House Finches, all brown birds in February are indeed females, and 
red ones are males.

For a discussion and photos of these differences see 
http://www.hiltonpond.org/PubFinchNABB94Abstract.html .


With best wishes,

BILL
-- 

BILL HILTON JR., "The Piedmont Naturalist"
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
hilton@hiltonpond.org, (803) 684-5852, eFax: (503) 218-0845

Please visit our web sites at http://www.hiltonpond.org and
http://www.rubythroat.org

"Never trust a person too lazy to get up for sunrise or too busy to
watch the sunset."					BHjr.