House Finch, orange morph
Haemorhous mexicanus
House Finch · San Diego Botanic Garden · 7 March 2026
An orange male House Finch in a San Diego garden, in the species' native West. House Finches are birds of dry scrub and town gardens from Mexico to Oregon, and it was Californian birds, sold as cage birds, that seeded the population now across the East.
Male House Finches get their red from carotenoid pigments in food, not from their own body chemistry, and a bird on a diet poor in the right pigments comes out yellow or, as here, orange instead of the usual red. Females reportedly prefer the reddest males they can find, which makes the colour a fairly honest signal of how well a bird has been feeding.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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