![]() The House Finch was most frequently detected in the Prairie Potholes, although even here it showed an affinity towards human habitation such that it was found in only 15% of surveyed squares, with smaller numbers in the Boreal Hardwood Transition and Boreal Taiga Plains. As mentioned in The Birds of Manitoba, the boreal forest represents a significant barrier to expansion beyond these areas however, one well-described outlier, a singing male on 23 June, 2014 in Thompson (K. The northernmost nesting efforts were found around Roblin, Dauphin, and Ashern. The distribution recorded during the atlas period is only marginally expanded from that depicted in 2003 in The Birds of Manitoba. 2012), and some range-peripheral Manitoba nesters appear to retreat southward in winter ( The Birds of Manitoba). The House Finch is largely resident within this range, although northern birds move into towns or downslope (Badyaev et al. The original population has spread north and the introduced eastern population has spread dramatically westward and southward and the species now occupies most of the conterminous U.S.A., southern Canada, and northern Mexico (Dunn and Alderfer 2011). It is native to the southwestern portions of North America, but was introduced in Long Island, New York in 1939 (Badyaev et al. ![]() The House Finch is a recent arrival to Manitoba, with the first records in the early 1980s and the first nesting reported in 1991 ( The Birds of Manitoba). The brown females have more diffuse streaking and lack the obvious facial markings of the Purple Finch. ![]() The House Finch closely resembles the more familiar Purple Finch, but males typically have a deeper red plumage, contrasting against a white belly with brown streaks the back, wings, and rear crown are mostly brown. The warbling song of the House Finch, usually commencing in February, is an indicator of spring in suburban areas and rural towns. Temple mentions one reason for their explosive population increase is that birds can nest from late March to early September, and that most pairs raise two to three broods with four to five young.Bird Conservation Regions Arctic Plains and Mountains Researchers estimate that there are around 34 million house finches in the U.S. We found our first house finches in 1990 on the Poynette Christmas Bird Count. By 1986 they were added to the Wisconsin bird list. Stan Temple, in 2006, wrote the house finch section in the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Wisconsin, “This remarkable range expansion has to be regarded as one of the more significant ornithological phenomena of recent decades.” In Wisconsin there were a few sightings in the 1970s. This news was passed to federal officials, and unscrupulous pet store owners shooed their loot of house finches into the streets to avoid prosecution. A birder recognized house finches in a Long Island pet store, and reported the situation to the Audubon Society. Wild house finches, marketed as Hollywood finches, were trapped illegally in southern California and shipped to Long Island, New York. In the 1940’s and 50’s, many Americans achieved a standard of living that allowed them to buy pets. House finches are native west of the Rocky Mountains.
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