John K. Flores: Christmas finches reveal a little surprise

By JThe day after Thanksgiving I found myself carrying out my traditional duties of getting the Christmas decorations down out of the shed and putting the lights up. In the process there’s humming, whistling, and occasionally singing if the words come to mind.
The holidays are special to me and my favorite time of year. The weather is cooler and people don’t seem so uptight about things as the year draws to a close.
It’s also the time of year we celebrate Advent and for the next four weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, we celebrate the Nativity of Christ.
My wife has several hanging ferns along our front patio. They’re beautiful and are no burden to string Christmas lights around.
It takes several hours to deck our halls. Christine generally takes the inside of the house and I take the outside. While stringing the lights, suddenly, a house finch burst from one of the hanging ferns.
My initial reaction was to pay it no mind. After all, birds have always attempted to nest in one or more of her hanging plants, particularly in the spring. And, house finches are welcomed guests. They’re colorful, eat at our bird feeder in the backyard and their song is sweet, cheery, and pleasant.
I got to thinking about the finches behavior and decided to take a look in the hanging plant. Sure enough, the little finch had built a nest and inside were four eggs.
“Can’t be,” I thought to myself.
Finches are prolific breeders and can lay 1 to 6 clutches of eggs each year. Only, their breeding and nesting season is March through August, not at the beginning of Advent.
I personally figured it was an anomaly and didn’t give the eggs much of a chance. House finches are common throughout the United States, but, along the Louisiana coastline they’re mostly a winter migrant.
Female house finches incubate the eggs, which takes about 13 to 14 days. This past week, I decided to take a peek in the nest, since I saw no activity from momma and poppa house finches. Lo and behold, there were four little fuzz balls all huddled together.
I contacted via social media, Erik Johnson, who is the director of Audubon Louisiana.
Johnson’s initial reaction was, “Wow, very interesting. ‘Winter’ breeding,” he said, “isn’t noted in the Cornell Birds of the World species account.”
Moreover, he let me know it would be great if I could track the success of this. Also, he thought it was worthy of a note as a valuable contribution to the Journal of Louisiana Ornithology.
Johnson said Audubon does its nest checks every 3 to 4 days to count eggs or chicks and they do it by taking just a quick peek. He also suggested I avoid early mornings and late evenings in cold weather.
Well, you can imagine now I’m worried about the little family that happens to be nesting less than 8 feet from my front door, not to mention about 6 feet off the ground. What about cats, heavy rains, cold temperatures, and what if there’s not a sufficient food source for the nestlings?
The theme of Advent is hope, peace, joy and love. All of those thoughts mean things as we celebrate the Nativity of Christ.
The world can be cruel sometimes and often appears there’s not enough of any of those Advent thoughts. But hope and love can overcome a multitude of things. Maybe even mixed-up birds that literally show up on your doorstep.
As I recall in the story of the Nativity, the young couple Mary and Joseph had to travel to a place where there was no room for them. A manger was all they could find. Surrounded by animals, Mary gave birth to the Savior of the World.
One of my “hopes” as the days draw nearer to Christmas is my little Advent house finches all fledge. And, in the days after fill my yard with cheery songs of “joy.” Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.