House finches are the perfect urban bird. They would willingly trade an empty lot filled with grasses and bushes and trees for a nice new house with a bird feeder. They are fond (understatement) of ...

If you hang a bird feeder outside your home, there’s a good chance that your first visitor will be some kind of finch. We have five kinds of finches in Marin: the reddish house finch and purple finch, ...

It seems like I have written a lot about birds lately, perhaps because even in our coldest weather many are still around and visible. On one of the recent sub-zero days, a group of birds in my ...

The spectacle of spring is upon us — birds singing, flowers blooming, bees buzzing. And though you may not be aware, there are romantic dramas to rival the latest season of Downton Abbey taking place ...

House finches show up at bird feeders all year, but on most visits, their plumage is hardly eye-catching. They have dense brown streaking on the underside and a robust conical beak. Both males and ...

Stan Tekiela explains how to tell house finches and purple finches apart at backyard feeders during spring migration.

Red and yellow male house finches eat at a bird feeder in an urban Phoenix backyard. The loss of natural habitat may be a driving force behind increases in avian parasite infections. Disclaimer: AAAS ...

When you spend hours and hours watching the same community of birds in the same place over the course of weeks, months and years, you risk the chance of getting a little bored. To keep things ...