My wife jokingly likened their appearance to moldy strawberries. Covered partially in spots of down, the new hatchlings were not much to look at. In most cases, each clutch gave rise to four youngsters. Our recent neighbors are likely descendants of those birds released in New York City over seventy-five years ago. 5, 6 Today, house finches are found from northern Florida up to southern parts of Canada, but their rapid expansion has come at a cost. Eyewitness reports of the birds began circulating in New York City but quickly radiated out to neighboring states. Fearing visits by authorities, traders and pet shops ended up releasing their caged house finches into the wild. Increased enforcement, though, eventually ended the illegal sale of the birds-but with unintended consequences. 4Īs late as 1940, “Hollywood finches” were being sold in New York City. The “Hollywood” part of the name was a promotional gimmick, for the finches are native to the West Coast but also to other western states, not just Tinseltown and surrounding areas of California. The caged birds were even dubbed “Hollywood finches” by illegal bird traders so as to glamorize the species, making it more exotic and attractive to potential buyers. However, the practice continued for decades in the United States. In 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act banned the human trafficking and sale of house finches.
By the 1880s, American travelers had introduced house finches to the Hawaiian Islands. Once captured, the creatures could be transported to other places-and indeed they often were. As many people today know, these birds love to build nests along human dwellings, which means that trapping them would have been relatively easy, likely resulting in part to their being sold as caged songbirds. When Americans settled westward during the nineteenth century, they took a fancy to house finches. Common today in all fifty states, this bird has a rather remarkable story. Not only did the nests afford us the opportunity to intimately watch these birds give rise to a new generation, but we were able to further ponder how a species native to the western parts of North America, especially Mexico, 1 had come to call North Carolina and the rest of the eastern United States home. During the past few weeks, we had been checking in on them. Our new neighbors were house finches, and they had built nests inside two awnings. At some point, we came up with nicknames for them (but more about those later). Soon the couples expanded their families, turning each home into a mosh pit of hungry, but oddly cute, ragamuffins.
#BROTHERS IN ARMS ROAD TO HILL 30 EASTER EGGS WINDOWS#
How could we have resisted spying on our new neighbors? Upon their arrival, they would sing by our windows and occasionally tap on the glass. Sailors and Swallows: Clearing up a Tattoo Mystery.So this Artist and a Cormorant Walk into a Bar.Tweet Dreams and Flights of the Imagination.The American South: Blue Jays and Ol’ Prejudices.Turkey Day: The Evolution of a Thanksgiving Tradition.Easter Eggs: Their Colorful History and Symbolism.
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