Common in NH · State bird
Purple Finch
Haemorhous purpureus · Finches (Fringillidae)
- Status
- State bird since 1957. Breeds statewide in conifers; numbers swing year to year with the cone crop
- Length
- 4.7–6.3 in
- Regions
- Coast · Merrimack · Lakes · The Whites · Conn. River
Couldn't load a clip just now —listen on xeno-canto ↗
What you notice first
A finch at the feeder that looks like a House Finch dipped in raspberry juice — the colour washes over the whole head and back, not just a bib.
Voice
A rich, fast warble, more musical and less buzzy than a House Finch, often ending without the House Finch's harsh downslurred note. A distinctive dry "tick" in flight.
Where & when
Mixed and coniferous woods for breeding; feeders and weedy edges in migration and winter. Best odds spring and fall, and in flight years, all winter. Some winters they mostly leave.
New Hampshire picked the Purple Finch as state bird in 1957, and then the House Finch showed up from the west and started outcompeting it around towns and feeders. So the state bird is now the harder of the two to see in most backyards — a small, quiet irony that suits it.
Roger Tory Peterson’s line is still the best field mark: a Purple Finch is “a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice.” The raspberry is spread evenly over the head, breast, and back. The female and young male have no red at all — brown and heavily streaked, with a bold pale eyebrow and a dark cheek patch that a House Finch lacks.
Their movements track the northern cone crop. Big flight years bring them to feeders all winter; poor years, they vanish south and you may not see one for months.