Photo: Christian Artuso
 Breeding evidence |
 Relative abundance |
 Probability of observation |
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Click on plot to view table of mean abundance
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Number of squares
Long-term BBS trends
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-1.19 (-1.8 - -0.544)|
Mean abundance (number of birds detected per 5 min. point count) and percentage of squares occupied by region Bird Conservation Regions [abund. plot]
[%squares plot]
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Characteristics and Range The adult male Purple Finch has raspberry colouration concentrated on the head, breast, and rump, and also suffusing the brown back and wings. Streaky, sparrow-like females and immature birds have distinctive, bold brow lines and malar stripes. The male's lively songs can be heard from late winter (when present) through spring migration and well into the summer. Three male song types are recognized: pre-breeding 'warbling', summer 'territory', and enigmatic 'vireo' songs ( Wootton 1996); the last of these bears a striking resemblance to the Blue-headed Vireo's song . Females also sing from the nest.
The eastern (nominate) subspecies breeds from interior British Columbia and southern Yukon across Canada to Newfoundland, including a fairly narrow neck through the southern boreal forests of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and extending southward well into the Great Lakes region, New England, and the northern Appalachians. Winter range shows a significant southeastward withdrawal and movements southward as far as eastern Texas and the Gulf coast but not peninsular Florida. Wintering in Manitoba is sporadic but increasingly frequent, and associated with feeders and a variety of tree seed crops (Taylor 2018). The Pacific subspecies occurs from southern coastal British Columbia to northern Baja California (Wootton 1996).
Distribution, Abundance, and Habitat Atlas records extend to ~55°N; one record near Island Lake is slightly beyond the estimated range boundary in The Birds of Manitoba. Wandering individuals have reached Churchill on at least four occasions (Jehl 2004). Detection rates were highest in the Boreal Hardwood Transition (47% of surveyed squares), followed by the Boreal Taiga Plains (25%), Prairie Potholes (16%), and Boreal Softwood Shield (9%). Point-count-based abundance was greatest near the south basin of Lake Winnipeg and in a few other small zones of the southern boreal forest. Scarcity of point-count records in the southern Prairie Potholes, relative to general atlas records, suggests localized occurrence in ornamental tree plantings and shelterbelts, more likely to be detected by general atlassing effort than by randomly selected point counts. Some southerly records may also refer to late migrants or even misidentified House Finches. This association with the southern boreal forest, and to a lesser extent the boreal-parkland transition and small woodlands in the Prairie Potholes including the Arden Ridge, fits the species' general preference for coniferous forests and mixed woods, and with its known ability to nest in anthropogenic habitats such as orchards and ornamental trees (Wootton 1996).
Trends, Conservation, and Recommendations Being neither abundant enough to be an easy subject, nor rare enough to be of special conservation concern, the Purple Finch has received little research attention (Wootton 1996). Population trends based on BBS data are slightly but significantly downward; detailed trend maps show a fine-scale patchwork of apparent increasing and decreasing trends. Declines in the east are partly linked to competition from invading House Finches (Wootton 1996). There is no discernible long-term change in Manitoba, and the only recommendation is for continued monitoring. Combined analyses of BBS and CBC data suggest a possible 47% decline (Rosenberg et al. 2016); however, as with many other finches, interpretation is complicated by irruptive winter movements and caution in interpretation is required.
Recommended citation: Taylor, P. 2018. Purple Finch in Artuso, C., A. R. Couturier, K. D. De Smet, R. F. Koes, D. Lepage, J. McCracken, R. D. Mooi, and P. Taylor (eds.). The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Manitoba, 2010-2014. Bird Studies Canada. Winnipeg, Manitoba http://www.birdatlas.mb.ca/accounts/speciesaccount.jsp?sp=PUFI&lang=en [20 Jan 2025]
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