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Photo Submission
Submitted By
Anne Briggs
Fredericksburg, VA, United States
Description
Active nest right outside our front door! My children have fun keeping tabs on this little family of birds. We are just learning how to monitor nests. So far, we have not disturbed these birds in any way other than taking photos of them from inside the house with a telephoto lens.
Category
Species
House Finch(?) Nest
Hi Anne,
These are indeed House Finches. The male has the red plumage, and the female is the brown one. And this is almost certainly a second nest, as they would not spend two months on one nesting cycle. A typical nesting cycle would last, at most, 33 days so this is likely number 2. They are great little birds.
My first time monitoring a House Finch nest I though we had birds with some serious gastro-intestinal problems. But it turned out that this is typical of the species. The nestlings deposit their droppings on the edge, and there they stay, forming a kind of rampart. I have always wondered if nature designed this for a reason, for example: to deter predators or some such functional purpose to the finches’ advantage…