House finch

This week's bird is probably the most common visitor to our feeder, apart from the sparrows, but it is also very skittish so until now I didn't have a good picture of it.  Yesterday my luck changed and I caught a house finch in the act.

This one was so cooperative, in fact, that it even did a twirl for me so that I could show you that it is only red from the front with a much duller behind.

Of course I can't be sure that it was showing off just for the camera, but it was soon joined by another one, equally gregarious.

These were both males, the females aren't red at all but just brown with white bars, though they still have the characteristic finch beak.  In the late winter we would have many of these little birds vying for a place at our feeder, but as the weather has warmed up they've paired up and started hanging out in smaller groups.  Today a little finch family visited the feeder, a juvenile and its parent, and the juvenile begged for food by flapping its wings and squawking.  The parent obliged.  It's making a rod for its own back, if you ask me.  First the grackles, now the finches.  I know that human children are becoming more and more reluctant to move out of the parental home, I didn't know it had spread to birds.  What is the world coming to?