With their plain-Jane garb of brownish gray and drab white, female house finches don’t draw the eye the way their male companions do with their deep red feathers.
When the female finches show up at our feeders, I glance at them, make a mental note of their number and hope something brighter will fly in to the circular perch.
Yet in the woods the other day, I spotted the female finch topping this post and snapped her photo. I didn’t think much of it at the time and moved on, hoping to find something brighter.
When I brought the photo up on screen at home, I was struck by the bird’s unexpected beauty. It seems I caught her at her best — a regal pose in gentle light, the slightly blurred green leaves behind her providing a soft, feminine backdrop.
The experience of viewing that photo reminds me to look intently at the birds and other critters that share our human habitat. At a glance, they may appear boringly ordinary. But upon closer, open-minded examination, each has its charms: delicate feathers, perhaps one askew, maybe a silvery beak clutching a small seed.
I also offer a photo of a Northern house wren, a bird that presents a subdued brown color scheme, nothing with pizzaz. And yet look at this sweet little one perched at an angle on the branch of a small tree.
I find beauty in the variations in the coloring of the feathers of his or her breast, something I don’t notice when looking a wrens in the moment. The photo captures the nuances.
To provide a bit of color, I’m adding a photo of a blue jay I spotted at the Charles Rogers Preserve not long after I saw the house finch. Blue jays have striking looks, of course, especially when the sun lights up their blue coats.
Most of the shots of blue jays I get are in profile or head-on, but this time I was behind the bird. On viewing the photo, I am struck by the near uniform rectangles on its tail feathers and the blue and white splotches on its primaries or wing tips.
I’ve seen thousands of blue jays over my lifetime, but how often do I look closely? Rarely. I’m glad I’ve discovered the joy of noticing the subtleties of these birds by looking at them more intently. It’s much easier to do so in viewing a photograph, but I’m committing myself to looking more intently at birds as they come into view. 🦅
The Jersey Birder 
Dan, thank you for that reminder of the beauty in common things. Just the way the female house finch’s feathers are layered, and the way they lie together (which must be aerodynamic) is miraculous. Thank you for the up-close view. The blue jay’s tail feathers are also magnificent! We don’t need an eagle or a cedar waxwing to be in awe.
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A male house finch that looked like it had just come out of the dryer on the tumble setting landed on the grill outside our kitchen window yesterday. At first we thought it was a wayward fledgling, but i got better look and concluded it was an adult male. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him beautiful, but even he had his charms.
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Long after the flashier migrants — Warblers, Tanagers, Thrushes, Osprey and Oriole — have gone, the steady company of woodpeckers and robins keeps the landscape alive. By mid-winter, when the ducks return — black duck, pintail, teal, wigeon — the marshes fill again, and the camera comes out almost by instinct.
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