FINCHforum

Boy or Girl (We THINK she(or he) is a house finch...) ??

Is this a wild bird? I think it is a male common yellow house finch.

Where abouts are you two located? Putting your locations in your profiles helps (you won't have to keep answering this).

Our House Finches are not yellow around here! They're red!

L in Ontario wrote: Our House Finches are not yellow around here! They're red!

L, most of the House Finches in the States are red as well, but we also have a yellow variation. They are far more uncommon than the red variant, but they do exist. The House Finch can vary from red, orange, and yellow. They all sing and sound similar.

P.S. I'm in Washington, D.C.

Im in CA-"Her" (We thought) nest had fallen and the praents would not come back for her so we hand raised her we were going to release her but she seems very happy and I was afraid that she would not be able to survive in the wild not being able to learn from her parents.

Oh and may I add that I have bird feeders outside and the main birds I get are RED house finches-We didnt find her here we found her a city over but I have never seen a yellow around here.

Love the crown!!!

Thanks for putting your location in your profile, Bugaboo! It helps!!

LittleBird -- well your domesticated house finch is a definite "him". If you get the red variant (the most common) house finches at your feeder, you will notice that only the males exhibit the vibrant red colors. The hens, or females, are plain gray or silver colored. As noted already, the yellow variant of the house finches is less common but does exist throughout the United States. Simply Google "Yellow House Finch" to see others similar to yours. He should start singing as males do -- did you say how old he was?

In regards to you keeping him in captivity -- well, you have valid points. How big is his cage? If you do plan on keeping him caged, I would encourage you to provide him as much spacious area as possible. Is he calm in the cage, or is he hyper and over-active? Yes, you have certainly domesticated him by wonderfully taking him in as a baby, but some "wild traits" are hard to kill. The other concern would be finding him a mate -- while it is not necessary, the "beautiful songs" we hear from our wild house finches is the males calling for females or trying to attract a male. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people keep male canaries as single pets for precisely this reason -- for their song -- but one must note that house finches and canaries are not the same.

If you are able to provide spacious housing and your beautiful male bird does not appear to be miserable living as a caged bird, then by all means, love him and adore him as you have done for all this time. I have never raised or had the need to handfeed wild bird babies so I cannot comment on how domesticated a wild bird can become when being hand-reared by humans. I have seen adult wild birds being caught and put into cages and they looked awfully miserable. Good luck with him -- he is a beauty.

LinOntario - thank you.

Bugaboo I had no idea you were in DC - I'm in Bethesda and work in DC Also, Dave (aka DCBeachBoy) is in DC as well

nixity wrote:Bugaboo I had no idea you were in DC - I'm in Bethesda and work in DC Also, Dave (aka DCBeachBoy) is in DC as well

See how great it can be to simply put your location in your profile!? You don't know who might live just around the corner from you!!

It's a small bird world sometimes

I have had him 5 years now- The cage is about 4ftX5ft and it is on top of a desk so he has full vision of the living room. Every so often I roll the cage out on the porch and he can see and talk to the other bird. He is very calm and likes to play with his toys and takes a bath everyday. we don't handle him but he isn't scared of people you can clean his water and give him food and he just waits patiently on his perch, he LOVES to be talked too. As soon as he was weaned off baby formula I did get him another finch friend from a bird lady and he was not very welcoming the poor new finch was scared to death so I did take her back. LOL It's a good thing we named him "Jack" because when he was a baby we called him "Jack Sparrow" because we thought it was a male sparrow but then we thought HE was a SHE and called her "Jackie" so I guess he's back to "Jack" now LOL

THANKS!

your male house finch would get the red color if you were to color feed him. In the wild what they eat is what gives them their color.Also be careful who tell that you have a house finch, it is against the law to keep them in captivity
lou

lou wrote:your male house finch would get the red color if you were to color feed him. In the wild what they eat is what gives them their color.Also be careful who tell that you have a house finch, it is against the law to keep them in captivity
lou

It seems you did a great job raising the house finch, however I think the bird needs to be set free. As lou says it is against the law to keep native birds captive. I think the bird will be fine if indeed you decide to let it go.
I raised a catbird recently and grew attached to it but I knew the right thing to do was to release it back into the wild.