cassin's finch

Hadn't visited or uploaded in several years, ahem.. got to get back to it.. been doing my own site and ignoring the great Birdforum. Good to stop in! Steve

A rather unexpected yard bird - my first Cassin's Finches (lifer #190), three birds in total, came to my feeder for a few days from April 7-9, 2008; here two of them (on the left) are seen feeding alongside a pair of the much more typical House Finches (on the right). No doubt these birds...

Two unexpected visitors (one female, one male) from the higher mountains surrounding us. My first lifer of 2008 (two days prior to this photo), and the first lifer to be seen at my own home since the Red-breasted Sapsucker of December 2005.

...to determine this finch--Cassin's Finch. It has a beautiful song http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Cassins_Finch.html#fig1

Sometime these can be confused with House Finches. But the red is more of a purple-magenta than red; it is slightly larger and the beak is more robust.

Sometimes photography comes to you. A fine spring day, mid-seventies and a small zephyr is murmering, melodic, in the leaves of the trees. He sits at a table with the kitchen window open filling the room with the aroma of spring air. A camera is perched upon it's monopod. It may get use, or...

A bird for the list. While they are not that uncommon, the males are not in as many numbers as the females. So, I was delighted to get this shot, the only one (not happy with the setting or BG) that this bird would alow. Not too disimilar to the house finch, with the following exceptions: The...

I deleted one of these earlier today but thought I would put one back up as there aren't too many on site.

A female Cassin's Finch in a Ponderosa Pine.