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Adult male house finches have red on their heads and breast with streaking on the belly when they eat certain berries, flowers and seeds.

House finches show up all year in neighborhood yards and gardens. You will notice them if they have been eating carotenoids.

Female house finches are cryptically brown with blurry brown streaks on a creamy belly. 

House finches show up at bird feeders all year, but on most visits, their plumage is hardly eye-catching.

They have dense brown streaking on the underside and a robust conical beak. Both males and females are plain brownish-gray on the topside with dense streaking on the underside.

The males have an unkempt-looking reddish head, throat and breast. But on occasion, their red color gleams.  

Why? The male’s deep red shade derives from carotenoids in plant-derived foods — such as birdseed, flower parts and wild fruits. The bird metabolizes more than a dozen carotenoids into pigmented feathers, with colors ranging from red to orange, depending on the season. 

Carotenoids also produce the radiantly red feathers of cardinals and yellow feathers in American goldfinches. House finches and other songbirds need a diet rich in carotenoids for acute vision, even if females do not metabolize the foods into brightly colored plumes. 

That’s the case with female house finches, too, which are typically brown with blurry brown streaks on a creamy belly. When on the nest in spring, their nondescript plumage obscures them from the prying eyes of predators.

• House finches live in habitats ranging from deserts to woodlands, as well as urban and suburban neighborhoods.

• They show up at bird feeders, singly or in small groups.

• The birds are susceptible to the highly contagious Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, an eye disease causing swelling and crustiness around the eye.

• The disease may cause blindness, and blind birds can't find food.

• It's not contagious to people but spreads to birds through filthy bird feeders or rancid bird seed.

• Prevent the disease by washing dirty or moldy feeders with 1-part bleach to 10-parts water.

We wouldn’t have seen house finches around Houston before the 1990s. Yet the birds were common in the Hill Country, where they sang a sprightly spring melody, sounding like "chirp-a-de-chirpy-chirp-eeezz."

The birds are now everywhere in the state, save for deep South Texas. Enjoy watching them at bird feeders as they pluck out seeds and roll each one in their bulky conical-shaped beaks as if in a chewing motion. They simply crush the seed with nutcracker-style beaks.

House finches once lived solely in their native homes from Mexico to the American Southwest, including California. But unsavory bird traders in the 1940s captured house finches in Los Angeles and snookered New York City pet stores into buying them.

The stores marketed the birds as “Hollywood Finches.” Realizing later that they had gotten involved in the illegal bird trade and could be prosecuted, store owners released the finches on Long Island. 

The finches thrived, reproduced and began moving into other parts of New York. Their offspring eventually spread throughout the eastern U.S.; native Southwestern house finches were spreading eastward, too. 

The birds now reside across much of the western and eastern U.S. and Canada.  

Gary Clark is the author of “Book of Texas Birds,” with photography by Kathy Adams Clark (Texas A&M University Press). Email him at Texasbirder@comcast.net.

Gary Clark is the weekly nature columnist for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He also publishes feature articles in state and national magazines and has written four books: "Texas Wildlife Portfolio," "Texas Gulf Coast Impressions," "Backroads of the Texas Hill Country" and "Enjoying Big Bend National Park." Gary is also a contributing author in the book, "Pride of Place: A Contemporary Anthology of Texas Nature Writing."

He has won eight Lone Star College writing awards and is the recipient of the Houston Audubon Society 2004 Excellence in Media Award and the Citizens' Environmental Coalition 2010 Synergy Media Award for Environmental Reporting.

Gary is professor of business and developmental studies at Lone Star College--North Harris. In 32 years at the college, Gary has served as vice president of instruction; dean of Business, Social and Behavioral Sciences; associate dean of Natural Sciences; professor of marketing; professor of developmental writing; and Faculty Senate president. He is a recipient of the Teacher Excellence Award.

Gary has been active in the birding community for more than 30 years. He founded the Piney Woods Wildlife Society in 1982 and the Texas Coast Rare Bird Alert in 1983. He served as president of the Houston Audubon Society 1989-1991 and purchased the North American Rare Bird Alert for Houston Audubon in 1990. He was vice president of the Board of Directors for the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory 2001-2008. He currently sits on the Board of Advisors for the Houston Audubon Society and Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. He is also a member of the American Mensa Society.

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