Passerine birds, an extensive and diverse group, comprise more than half of the world's bird species. Characterized by relatively large brains and enhanced learning capabilities, they exhibit a wide range of behaviors and adaptations. Within this group, the oscines, or true songbirds, are distinguished by their complex songs. The finch family, known for acrobatic seedeaters equipped with conical bills and notched tails, showcases nomadic tendencies, often wandering in winter in search of abundant seeds. Purple Finches, in particular, have specific dietary needs and preferences that influence their habitat, behavior, and conservation status.
General Description
The Purple Finch ( Haemorhous purpureus) is closely related to the Cassin's Finch and the House Finch, and in some areas of Washington, all three can be found. All three species are streaked, and the males of all three have red plumage. Male Purple Finches typically have brown undertones on their backs and wings, but are reddish-purple overall (with the exception of their white bellies), with the brightest coloring on their breasts and heads. Female Purple Finches are heavily marked with short, blurry streaks on their breasts and have white markings on their faces. The breast streaks do not converge in a central spot as on many sparrows. Unlike the House and Cassin's Finches, Purple Finches typically lack streaks on their undertail coverts. Purple Finches have short, notched tails and straight bills, although not as straight as those of the Cassin's Finch.
Finch Behavior and Habitat
Many finch species flock outside and sometimes during the breeding season. Many finches have undulating flight patterns, and may give calls while in flight. They tend to inhabit forest patches and shrubby edges. Most finch species are sexually dimorphic and monogamous, and although the females alone generally incubate the eggs, both sexes help tend the young.
Purple Finches generally frequent moist coniferous and mixed-forest lowlands, especially areas with openings, edges, and abundant understory. They are often spotted in revegetating clear-cuts, farmlands, and rural residential areas. However, they tend to avoid large mature forests and are outcompeted by House Finches in suburban and urban areas. In wetter western Washington, they can be found in most forest types, but in eastern Washington they are mostly restricted to wetlands and irrigated orchards.
Small flocks form in late summer and early fall, and groups may visit bird feeders regularly in winter, when those feeders are not dominated by House Sparrows or House Finches.
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Purple Finch Diet
Purple Finches eat mostly seeds, buds, and berries. They are also known to consume insects, especially during the summer months. Their diet heavily consists of seeds in winter, including seeds of trees such as ash and elm, as well as weed and grass seeds. Also, they eat buds of many trees, and many berries and small fruits. Eats some insects such as caterpillars and beetles, mainly in summer. Young may be fed mostly on seeds.
The complex color pallet of pale red-violet hues of a male Purple Finch’s feathers comes from a diet rich in carotenoids - pigments derived from their diet of buds, flowers, seeds, and insects. Their unique beak is large in size, and can reach the nectar without eating the flower or extracting the nectar from a nut. They eat the whole seed, preventing pollination.
They are fond of sunflower seeds, millet, buds and thistle. The fruits they eat include berries from honeysuckle, blackberries and poison ivy as well as apricots, cherries, crabapples and juniper.
Nesting Habits
Monogamous pairs usually nest on a horizontal branch or in the fork of a conifer tree, typically well out from the trunk. The female builds the nest, which is a compact, open cup made of twigs, weeds, and rootlets, and lined with fine grass, hair, and moss. The female incubates 3 to 5 eggs for 12 to 13 days. The male brings food to the female while she incubates, and both adults bring food to the chicks. The young leave the nest after 13 to 16 days. The young can fly weakly when they first fledge and stay close to the nest for at least two more weeks before dispersing.
In courtship, male hops near female with his wings drooping, tail raised, chest puffed out, then vibrates wings until he rises a short distance in the air. May hold bits of nest material in bill and give soft song during this performance. Nest: Placed on horizontal branch or fork of tree (usually conifer in East, deciduous trees often used in far West), often well out from trunk. Typically about 15-20' above ground but may be lower or up to 50' high. Nest (probably built mostly by female) is compact open cup of twigs, weeds, rootlets, strips of bark, lined with fine grass, moss, animal hair.
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Migration and Location
Flocks of Purple Finches undertake a drawn-out migration in both the fall and spring. In much of the eastern United States, Purple Finches are short-distance migrants, wintering in points south of their breeding range. Western Purple Finches are very uncommon in winter in Puget Sound, but large numbers move through in spring.
Purple Finches are primarily a western Washington species, where they are common and widespread in undeveloped areas. Researchers say this movement is due to variability in the food sources of birds, i.e. Purple Finches hail from Canadian territory in the northeast, as well as from the Pacific coast. They breed in coniferous forests, mixed deciduous and coniferous woods.
Purple Finch Conservation Status
The introduction of House Finches in the eastern United States in the early 20th Century appears to have caused a decline in Purple Finch populations in that part of the country. House Finches have also replaced Purple Finches in many developed areas of Washington, and Purple Finches have experienced significant annual declines statewide since 1980.
The Purple Finch shows a significant decreasing Breeding Bird Survey trend in Massachusetts, in the New England/Mid-Atlantic Region, and in the Eastern US overall. To date there is little expectation of recovery for this species because there is little work being done to help the species.
Attracting Purple Finches
Your backyard sunflower seed feeder is probably a great place to look for Purple Finches if you live within their winter range. This species moves very erratically from year to year, so if you don’t have them this year, there’s always a chance they’ll arrive next year.
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Purple Finches have large, seed-cracking beaks, and they seem to like black oil sunflower seeds best. A seed preference study determined that they choose thinner sunflower seeds over wider ones. Coniferous trees in your backyard may encourage Purple Finches to visit. A window, tube or tray feeder will definitely do the trick.
Purple Finch Vocalization and Courtship
Purple Finches have a sweet, harmonious warbling sound, so much so that there was a time when they were kept in cages. Purple finches communicate in song that has a “tick” to it, to communicate when traveling in flocks. Males use other tweets when defending their territories. Once a male fancies a female, he’ll start his “jig and chirp” mating dance. After these huge efforts, once mated, the male takes it easy while the female does all the hard work, like building the nest. The male does help her here and there but she does the most of the actual construction.
Historical Perspective
The Crimson Linnet, or Purple Finch, apparently existed in Massachusetts for centuries. Primarily known as a migrant, it nevertheless also nested in the Bay State as long ago as the 1830s. General Henry Dearborn, a hero of both the Revolution and the War of 1812, was the first to find its nest, “on the low branch of a balsam fir, with the outside covered with lichens” (Peabody 1839). Throughout most of the nineteenth century, the species’ story was one of abundance and near ubiquity. However, in the late years of that century the species began to exhibit nomadic tendencies and irruptive behavior (Howe & Allen 1901).
During Atlas 1 Purple Finches were still widespread (64% of the blocks surveyed) in Massachusetts, but their distribution was not as continuous as it was historically. The western hill country in the Berkshires still maintained nearly complete block occupancy. Breeding concentrations waned through the Berkshire Transition, and the species was present, but local, in the largely agricultural Connecticut River Valley. Areas of suitable woodland habitat throughout the Worcester Plateau regions showed signs of breeding Purple Finches, even though relatively few were Confirmed. Purple Finches were fairly uniform from the Coastal Plains east, with block occupancy rates ranging from 54% to 60%.
There has been a remarkable decline in the distribution of the Purple Finch, reducing this once fairly common breeder to a fraction of its range in a mere 35 years. Its distribution in Atlas 1 was comparatively robust, inhabiting conifers in both natural and planted settings, and occupying the pine barrens of the Bristol Lowlands and Cape Cod regions. By the time of Atlas 2, the Purple Finch was apparently extirpated from much of its former range in the state, and reduced to 43% of the state. The western regions fared the best, with the Taconics, Vermont Piedmont, Berkshire Transition, and Worcester Plateau regions all showing a net gain for this species.