How do birds (or most any animal) communicate? As humans, we have big, fat dictionaries full of words. The female House Finch seems to have two notes (words) to cover everything. The male seems to have an entire sentence. Despite that, they are somehow able to impart everything the chicks need to know about what the parents want them to do.
I was glad to see the parents were not simply relying on the bird feeder to supply seeds for their young. Both parents would also collect seeds from the lawn to feed them. They seemed particularly fond of dandelion seeds. They would also gather grass seed by plucking up a bunch and "winnowing" the seeds off the end of the blades. They were very adept at that. Here, you can see the male winnowing seeds.
Here is the female also gathering seeds. They would almost always do things together. It isn't very often you see one without the other.
House Finches are supposedly monogamous over a breeding season, but based on what I have seen, I would think they are monogamous over a life time. We see this same pair over winter coming to the feeder regularly. They stay together during that period of time also. House Finches do not migrate, so it is easy enough to keep track of them.
This may appear to be the female feeding the chicks, but it actually the male. They regurgitate the seeds and feed each chick. I was surprised not to see any of the chicks try to dominate the feeding. They all seemed to patiently await their turn to be fed. She had four eggs of which three hatched.
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