The House Finch is the cheerful, streaky little finch of porches, hanging baskets, and feeder poles across Michigan's towns and suburbs. Males are washed rosy-red on the head and breast; females are plain gray-brown with blurry streaking. The long, jumbled warbling song pours out from wires and rooftops from late winter on.
House Finches are a western species originally — birds released on Long Island in 1940 spread across the entire eastern United States within decades, reaching Michigan by the 1980s. They are now among the most common feeder birds in the state.
Almost entirely a vegetarian: seeds, buds, and fruit year-round. At feeders they settle in for long sessions of sunflower seed, unlike the grab-and-go chickadees, and often arrive in chatty little groups.
Male House Finches show red on the head and breast with a streaked belly; male House Sparrows have a gray crown and black bib with no red anywhere. Females are trickier: the finch is slimmer with blurrier streaking below.
That's likely House Finch eye disease (mycoplasmal conjunctivitis), a common infection in this species. Take feeders down for a couple of weeks and clean them with a 10% bleach solution to stop it spreading.
Not originally — they're a western bird introduced to the East in 1940 that expanded on its own. Because they arrived by natural spread rather than staying an isolated introduction, they're treated as an established resident today.
No — this is a permanent resident here, recorded in all twelve months. Numbers are highest from April through July. What changes through the year is behavior rather than presence: conspicuous song and display in spring, quieter foraging the rest of the year.
Females and all juveniles are plain brown with blurry streaking and no red at all, and young males take months to color up. Male color also varies from deep red to orange to yellow depending on the pigments in the fruit they ate while molting.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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