House Finch or Purple Finch? Look at the Flanks
By IdentifyThese Editorial · Reviewed · 3 min read
The classic description, and still the best one, is that a purple finch looks like a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice, while a house finch looks like a brown bird with red splashed on the front.
Three characters make it repeatable.
The flanks
House finch — brown streaking runs down the sides and flanks, below and behind the red. The red stops at the chest and the streaking carries on.
Purple finch — the flanks are clean. There is no crisp brown streaking on the sides; the raspberry wash blends into white.
This is the character to use. It works on any male, in any light.
Where the colour is
House finch — red confined to the forehead, the throat, the chest and the rump. The back stays plain brown.
Purple finch — the raspberry washes over the whole head, the back, the wings and the rump. The bird looks coloured throughout rather than coloured in front.
The females
Harder, and the face is the answer.
House finch female — plain, blurry, greyish-brown with soft indistinct streaking and no face pattern at all. Nothing stands out.
Purple finch female — a bold white eyebrow and a dark cheek patch below it, with a strong white stripe along the jaw. The streaking below is crisp and heavy rather than blurry.
If the face has a pattern, it is a purple finch.
The comparison
| House finch | Purple finch | |
|---|---|---|
| Male colour | Red on head and chest only | Raspberry over head, back and rump |
| Flanks | Brown streaking | Clean, unstreaked |
| Female face | Plain, no pattern | Bold white eyebrow and jaw stripe |
| Bill | Curved upper edge | Straight upper edge, heavier |
| Tail | Shallow notch | Deeply notched |
| Habitat | Towns, suburbs, everywhere | Conifer and mixed woodland |
The bill profile is a useful confirmation: a house finch's upper edge curves noticeably, giving a rounded look, while a purple finch's is straight and the whole bill is chunkier.
Which you are looking at
Almost certainly a house finch. They are one of the most abundant feeder birds on the continent — originally western, released in New York in the 1940s when a pet trade in "Hollywood finches" was shut down, and now everywhere.
Purple finches are irruptive: they come south in numbers in some winters and hardly at all in others, depending on the conifer seed crop further north. A winter with purple finches at the feeder is worth noticing.
Why house finch red varies
From scarlet through orange to distinctly yellow, all in the same population.
The red comes from carotenoid pigments the bird cannot manufacture and must get from food while moulting. A male that moulted on a poor diet is orange or yellow. Females prefer the reddest males, which makes the colour an honest signal of how well he fed.
So an orange or yellow "house finch" is not a different species, a hybrid or a sick bird. It is a house finch that had a thin autumn. The same logic applies to why colour is the wrong thing to identify a bird by — it varies for reasons that have nothing to do with which species you are looking at.
The third option
Cassin's finch, in the mountain west, sits between the two: a bright red crown cap contrasting with a paler face and back, clean flanks, and a longer straight bill. Where all three overlap, this becomes genuinely difficult and the crown contrast is what to look at.
Species referenced
Keep reading
- The Small Brown Bird at My FeederFour species account for nearly every one. Look at the breast — plain, blurry or heavily streaked with a central spot — and the answer follows.
- Downy or Hairy Woodpecker? Measure the Bill Against the HeadTwo nearly identical woodpeckers separated by bill length. Compare the bill with the width of the head, and check the outer tail feathers.
- Crow or Raven? Look at the Tail, Not the SizeSize is useless without something to compare against. The tail shape in flight settles it at any distance, and so does the voice.