How far will a house finch fly for a regular meal?

May 30, 2020 3:23 PM

Our backyard feeders attract nearly a dozen house finches. I'm curious about how far away they might be nesting. Assuming that we are the most convenient go-to meal stop, how far away might that be?
posted by John Borrowman to Science & Nature (1 answer total)

I'm probably not the bird expert you're looking for but avian range comes up a lot in my work. I tried several searches to find this and the most promising string was:

"house finch" "home range size" [google scholar] which found me this:

Effects of bird feeder density on the foraging behaviors of a backyard songbird (the House Finch, Haemorhous mexicanus) subject to seasonal disease outbreaks by Aberle et al. 2020, Canadian Journal of Zoo.

which is more broad than house finches and is useful for understanding other species' ranges. They cite Dhondt who conclude "...all birds ..wereobserved to move over more than 3 km between the roost site and a daytime feeding location"

Dhondt etal 2007. House Finch Carpodacus mexicanus roosting behaviour during the non-breeding season and possible effects of Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis. In Ibis journal.
posted by unearthed at 11:57 PM on September 19, 2020