[obol] Portland Cassin's Finch

[David Irons]

Andy et al,

One possibility was that this was a recently hatched Purple Finch.  Young Purple Finches are paler brown and lack the greenish tones of an adult female Purple Finch, and they tend to have much finer and crisper looking streaking below.  However, it seems a bit early for a young Purple Finch to be out of the nest and unattended.  When I was at Malheur last weekend, there were a couple migrant Cassin's Finches in the trees at headquarters, so we can assume they are still on the move.   A couple things that are helpful when you think you have a Cassin's Finch; look for an eyering (Cassin's has one, Purple doesn't), look at how straight the culmen is (Purples have slightly curved culmens, while Cassin's show a straight culmen), and look for streaking on the undertail coverts.  Beware that young Purple Finches show some streaks on the undertail coverts, even though most field guides would have you believe they don't.    

Dave Irons
Eugene, OR 

> From: andy.frank at kp.org
> To: obol at oregonbirdwatch.org
> Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 17:22:57 -0700
> Subject: [obol] Portland Cassin's Finch
> 
> I'm personally finding this hard to believe, but I believe I just saw a 
> CASSIN'S FINCH from my yard in NW Portland.  I was able to get excellent 
> views;   It was directly facing me from about 40 yards away and I got to 
> watch it for about a minute through my spotting scope . It was clearly a 
> finch, and had fine sparse streaking on the chest and a conical bill.   I 
> was not able to see well the face pattern or length of the primary 
> projection but the streaking was much finer and crisper than would fit a 
> Purple or House Finch, and the bill was much thicker than a Pine Siskin 
> would have.  I am open to suggestions if there is something more common that 
> I should be considering.
> 
> Andy Frank 
> 
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