Christmas Finch
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Christmas Finch, Haemorhous rubracoronam L 17 cm, WS 25-30 cm, Family: Fringillidae
IUCN Conservation Status: Least concern (LC)
Description:
Small songbird with medium-length notched tail and heavy bill. Breeding males rosy-pink overall with bright red crown and throat, brown light streaking on back and sides. Reddish wash fades to cloudy white undersides. Brown stripes on head and slightly peaked red crown help distinguish from other finches. Females lack red, brown overall with heavier streaking. Eastern populations generally less colorful, red often limited to head. Similar to Cassin’s and Purple finches of mainland.
Voice:
Song is a fast, rolling warble composed of multiple short notes and syllables, lasting 2-3 seconds, often repeated. Two versions exist: a “slow” version and a “fast” version, with up to twice as many notes in the same time frame. Slow songs are used more often in attracting females, while fast songs are used more to defend territories from other males. Females have a song of their own, similar to the male’s slow song but much quieter, and usually only sung while the female is incubating. Calls are a sharp, two syllable wit-tek.
Range and Habitat:
Range encompasses most of Novasola. Will avoid the high peaks during winter, and much less common in prairies. Birds of Francis Islands and interior prairie more like eastern birds. Christmas Finches are found in temperate rainforest, conifer, mixed, and deciduous forests, dry pine and juniper stands, oak savannah, and scrubland and, less frequently, grassland. In summer can be found occasionally in subalpine to alpine areas. Also found in man-made habitats like yards and gardens, and will commonly visit feeders.
Discussion:
A
common songbird across Novasola, and the second most common finch behind the Merriam’s
Goldfinch, the Christmas Finch is perhaps best known as a backyard feeder bird.
Resourceful birds, they have been quite successful adapting to human
development and exploiting novel food sources, which has allowed them to spread
their range and grow in numbers, more common now than ever before. The
Christmas Finch, which is reliant on at least some tree cover, has colonized
Novasola’s prairie thanks to orchards and other human plantings. Because they are
so common and often perch on high or exposed branches or power lines, they are
easy to spot
The
Christmas Finch’s diet consists mostly of seeds and buds, occasionally also
eating insects and fruit. They look for the seeds of various conifers like
pines and firs, aspens, and maples, and buds from aspen and madrone, but they
also eat fruit like huckleberries and especially madrone fruit. They typically
forage hopping from branch to branch, using their strong, conical bills to pull
seeds or fruit straight from the plant, or glean insects off leaves. In the prairie,
finches will eat more aspen, manzanita, and insects. Social birds, Christmas Finches
often forage in large flocks. Outside the breeding season, these flocks may
number in the hundreds of individuals.
During
breeding males will sing from high, exposed branches, which along with their
color and volume make them easy to spot. Once paired the female will build a
nest, often in a madrone tree where possible but will also use junipers, pines,
or aspen, and will place the nest under an overhanging branch. Incubation lasts
around 10 days, and eggs are greenish-blue with black and brown speckling. A
pair can have up to three broods a year. Extra-pair mating is common, and they
often find new mates each year. After the breeding season they will form nomadic
flocks and are often found in mixed flocks with other finches like crossbills and
goldfinches.
The
Christmas Finch is closely related to other birds in its genus Haemorhous,
which includes the House Finch, Cassin’s Finch, and the Purple Finch. It is now
thought that Christmas Finches are most closely related to Cassin’s Finches, though
it was always assumed to be closer to Purple Finches. In fact, the Christmas
Finch was originally thought to be a subpopulation of Purple Finch, and wasn’t
split into its own species until 1902 by Richard Reichwald, who gave it its new
species name rubracoronam, which comes from the Latin rubra,
meaning red, and coronam, crown. The most common Taiyalun name for the
bird is madugag.
Reichwald saw many Christmas Finches in his travels, but they are actually more common now, having expanded their range and population along with human settlement; one of the few Novasolan endemic birds to successfully do so. This small, brightly colored bird is popular among feeder enthusiasts and is heavily associated with the winter months when they gather in greater numbers and become more visible, and its image is often used in winter and holiday decorations.
“I have heard for many mornings of our journey a song of splendid composition, whose singer must be in the company of the American purple finches. I have seen from afar red blemishes adorning high branches which no doubt produce that very music, but I have yet to get one of these birds in hand.” – Expedition log, July 14, 1902
“A local man, a farrier by the name of Poplov, has brought me as a holiday gift a freshly plucked grouse, and with it he gave four carcasses for me to study. Immediately I recognized three of the birds to be two males and a female of the red finches I was unable to describe in the expedition previous.
…
The male, like its brethren in the Purple Finch, is awash in a rose-wine hue, with brown striping down its back and breast. His crown and throat are of a more brilliant red, which contrast with the brown striping down the face. Females are of similar pattern but dry are they of any red color.
…
This Christmas finch is perhaps the greatest, indeed personal favorite, gift I have this year, and they serve beyond all else to excite me for the coming year, in which I pray to find yet more jewels of their ilk.” – Personal journal, December 25, 1902
“Like a king with his crown of scarlet which he so often endeavors to keep raised atop his head, the Christmas Finch sits upon high thrones of unobstructed deadwood, so that he may keep watch over his domain and banish any unwelcome males.
Funny then, is it, that he may be so comfortable choosing for his throne a hog pen fence or mule stable rooftop.” – Native Birds of Novasola, 1912