Raising Another Family

The pair of House Finches that raised two broods in a hanging pot on our porch last year are back again this year. They actually were surveying the site starting in February (!). This is the female. She is quite plain, but pretty in her own right.

Here is her partner who is quite a bit more colorful. Last year I didn't see him helping in construction of the nest. He would go everywhere she did, but he seemed to function as a body guard more than anything else. This year, though, I noticed he was actually helping with building the nest.

Surprisingly, instead of renovating the old nest, they built a new one right on top of the old one! So, now there are two nests liked stacked tea cups.

She set about laying eggs, ending up with four or five. They lay one a day and don't begin to sit until the last one is laid. The eggs hatch after about two weeks. Nesting is a little disruptive to our activities, but we try to stay away from that area as much as possible. She will occasionally get spooked and leave the nest for a short period of time. The hanging basket is made up of fake silk plants which doesn't seem to bother her in the least.

Almost any time she spooks, she will take advantage of the time away from the nest to go to the feeder on the back deck and get something to eat, which I think is a good use of her time. The chicks are now hatched and she is seen in this photo returning to the nest to feed her chicks seeds from the feeder.

Once the chicks hatch, the female no longer stays in the nest, but shuttles back and forth with food for the chicks.  The male, seen here, also helps with keeping them fed. They rely pretty heavily on seeds from the feeder. That is part of the reason we feed birds year-round. The feeder helps to supplement their diet if they are having trouble foraging for other types of food.

Then, it is off to get more grub. Many times, once the babies have fledged, birds will bring them to the feeder. This allows the next generation to get use to the feeder. The House Finches will, in all likelihood, begin to raise a second brood as soon as this one has fledged, like they did last year.