Seven House Finches feature in the archive — two adults and five chicks. We never gave them names. We came to know them by behavior: how mum sat, how dad arrived, which chick was the holdout. House Finches don’t band themselves and we didn’t ring them, so the individual identities below are inferred from the cameras, not confirmed.
Mum
Adult female House Finch. Plain brown-streaked plumage — no red. Did all the incubation, all the brooding shifts, most of the feeding. The bird who sat through the hatch overnight without leaving the cup. The bird who, on Fledge Day, kept returning to coax the final chick out.
Dad
Adult male House Finch. Red wash on the crown, breast and rump — the diet-driven coloration House Finch males get from carotenoid-rich seeds; this bird's red is bright, which suggests a good feeder. Did the courtship feeding through pre-hatch, then shifted to direct provisioning of the brood. His visit pattern shows up clearly on the provisioning chart starting around Day 8.
The chicks
Five chicks. Hatched overnight on May 7 (Day 13). First clean count of four was on Day 14 (the "Four Chicks, Maybe Five" dispatch); the fifth was confirmed by Day 19. Numbered loosely in the prose by hatch order where it was discernible, but mostly they were a pile. By Day 28 they'd outgrown the cup and were standing on the shelf around it. On Day 30 they were spilling over onto the bookshelf surface. Four fledged in a fourteen-minute window starting at 09:12 on Day 28 / May 24; the fifth held back through the morning and was finally drawn out by the parents in the late afternoon.
What we don’t know
- Whether mum and dad are a returning pair or first-time nesters. We have no banding data and no prior record of this nest site.
- Where the chicks ended up. Once they fledged the cameras’ usefulness ended; juveniles don’t return to the cup.
- Whether mum and dad will nest here again. House Finches will renest, sometimes within a few weeks, sometimes not until next spring. Round 2 at birbs.cje.io is monitoring the same site to find out.
A note on names
A few readers have asked if we’ll name the birds for round 2. The current intent is no — the cameras are observational, not relational. Anonymous adults read more honestly. The chicks are still a pile.