Stefan Minnig
01-08-2009, 08:36 PM
As an amateur birder, I could use some help. I am leaning though towards purple finch for a couple different reasons.
1. When I first saw this finch (November 25th, 2007 at 9:15 am), I was amazed at how colorful he was, which was enough for me to rush and take three lousy pictures of him. I had previously seen hundreds of house finches, so I was well aware how they looked. Of course, that was the last time I recall seeing any finches of that coloration at my feeders. I do normally see many houses that range in coloration in shades of red, but none of that caliber.
2. I decided to merge a couple photos together in Photoshop. The finch in question was alone so I decided to merge another photo of an identical feeder (except feeder color) which was shot minutes later. Of course, it was nice that the now super-imposed feeder was taken at roughly the same angle and had a known house finch sitting on it. The super-imposed image on top of the underlying image is chopped on purpose to show that the feeder size and angle closely match, as to not scale one bird unfairly. The finch at left, is bigger and bulkier to suggest a purple.
Obviously to some, having a purple finch in the yard is almost as common as having a house sparrow. For me though, this is the only time one MAY have been at the feeder in the 3 years I've been watching. Also, a purple finch identification will add on to the number of species visiting my feeders.
...The reason it COULD be a house finch is that there looks like some streaking apparent on the underside. Mottling maybe? The top photo was adjusted with levels in PS and cropped. The other, I matched the color of the super-imposed photo using color-balance with its underlying counterpart. Otherwise, nothing else was color-corrected. I apologize for the poor quality of the photo(s).
Thanks for your help!
1. When I first saw this finch (November 25th, 2007 at 9:15 am), I was amazed at how colorful he was, which was enough for me to rush and take three lousy pictures of him. I had previously seen hundreds of house finches, so I was well aware how they looked. Of course, that was the last time I recall seeing any finches of that coloration at my feeders. I do normally see many houses that range in coloration in shades of red, but none of that caliber.
2. I decided to merge a couple photos together in Photoshop. The finch in question was alone so I decided to merge another photo of an identical feeder (except feeder color) which was shot minutes later. Of course, it was nice that the now super-imposed feeder was taken at roughly the same angle and had a known house finch sitting on it. The super-imposed image on top of the underlying image is chopped on purpose to show that the feeder size and angle closely match, as to not scale one bird unfairly. The finch at left, is bigger and bulkier to suggest a purple.
Obviously to some, having a purple finch in the yard is almost as common as having a house sparrow. For me though, this is the only time one MAY have been at the feeder in the 3 years I've been watching. Also, a purple finch identification will add on to the number of species visiting my feeders.
...The reason it COULD be a house finch is that there looks like some streaking apparent on the underside. Mottling maybe? The top photo was adjusted with levels in PS and cropped. The other, I matched the color of the super-imposed photo using color-balance with its underlying counterpart. Otherwise, nothing else was color-corrected. I apologize for the poor quality of the photo(s).
Thanks for your help!