[Birdnet] Sugar water

[Kristin Purdy]

Art,

Your question was posted on the birdnet list serv, which may have reached 
only the people who subscribe for rare bird reports. You could also have 
posted on birdtalk, which is intended for routine field trip reports, common 
birds, and discussion.

Regarding your question on House Finches liking nectar, simply put, they 
have a sweet tooth. House Finches are known for their love of fruit, 
although it's likely that their reputation far outpaces the reality of their 
consumption. The House Finch species account in Cornell's Birds of North 
America online estimates that the House Finch's summer diet includes no more 
than about 20% fruit matter. But historical accounts believed differently. 
Here are a few germane quotes about the bird's fruit eating habits from 
Arthur Cleveland's Bent's Life Histories of North American Cardinals, 
Grosbeaks, Buntings, Towhees, Finches, Sparrows and Allies, 1968:

"To the average city dweller, its domestic tastes, cheerful song, amiable 
manner, and the bright coloring of the male make it a pleasing adjunct to 
the dooryard or window sill; but a grower of the softer varieties of fruit 
who watches flocks of these birds descend like locusts upon his ripening 
crop finds difficulty in appreciating their esthetic values."

"The House Finch exhibits, in common with many other birds, a fondness for 
maple sap, sipping it as it oozes from the cut branches of a spring pruned 
tree."

"The fruits that suffer most severely from the linnets* are peaches, 
apricots, nectarines, plums, sweet cherries, pears, summer apples, and 
loquats."

*former or common name for the House Finch

Bent went on to say that seeds constitute their staple food, even though the 
birds have a bad reputation among fruit-growers for taking crop species.

In and around my yard, House Finches are fond of the fruit of Bradford 
(ornamental) Pears and one species of hawthorne in fall and early winter.

Kris
  ---- Original Message ----- 
  From: Akwehl at aol.com
  To: birdnet at utahbirds.org
  Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2008 1:04 PM
  Subject: [Birdnet] Sugar water


  How do I put the following question out to the full membership?

  Why do common house finch like sugar water as much as my Hummers do?


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