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Re: House Finches



Typically each winter on the Wyoming / Utah border in Evanston we have moderate numbers of House and Cassin's finches.
For the last 2 years both species have nested here then disappeared in September.
 
The last year we had good numbers of Cassin's was 2001. I even had one orange and an unusual orange/yellow morph frequenting my feeder. But in 2002 many had some sort of disease. Their beaks were deformed and had sores on them. Some had infected eyes. Maybe this is part of the downward trend??
 
Also the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches are not showing up. Around the Holidays there used to be hundreds and hundreds of them; enough to drive the House Sparrows off the feeders. Now there are but a handful. We see them on the Deseret Land and Livestock Ranch on the Christmas Bird Count. The Ranch rotates cattle grazing areas, resting many acres of habitat that supplies food for the GCRFs. The rest of our land here is stricken with years of drought and subsequent overgrazing. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches (and many other species) can't rely on human supplied food alone. I believe there's just so little to eat they move on. 
 
The lack of weeds and weed seeds also minimizes the rodent population and their feathered predators. Hawks, falcon, and owl numbers are down. 
 
On the upside we had Redpolls last winter!!!
 
Tim Gorman
Evanston WY