Feeder bird lookalikes
Most mix-ups at the feeder come down to four pairs. On a woodpecker, check the bill: a hairy’s is nearly as long as its head, a downy’s much shorter. On a red finch, check the sides: streaked on a house finch, clean on a purple finch. For a chickadee, where you live decides it. Among winter goldfinches, a streaked bird with a flash of yellow in the wing is a pine siskin.
The four pairs at a glance
Not one of these? Narrow all 27 feeder birds by where you are, the month, size, colors and marks, then see what each one eats.
Downy or hairy?
Both live in wooded places across most of the US and both come to suet; in Missouri, both stay all year.
House finch or purple finch?
In Missouri, purple finches come only from October to April; house finches stay all year.
Which chickadee?
In Missouri, where the two meet, black-capped is mostly in the north and Carolina mostly in the south.
Goldfinch or siskin?
Goldfinches stay all year in Missouri; pine siskins arrive only some winters, when food runs short up north.
Downy or hairy woodpecker
Look at the bill against the head. A hairy woodpecker’s bill is almost as long as its head is deep; a downy’s is much shorter, a small chisel. The hairy is also the bigger bird, about robin size against the downy’s sparrow size, though size is hard to judge with nothing beside it. Most downies show a few black bars on their white outer tail feathers, which are plain white on a hairy. In both, only the male has the red patch on the back of the head.
House finch or purple finch
On a red male, check the flanks. A house finch is red on the head, breast and rump, with brown streaks down its sides and a brown back; a purple finch looks dipped in raspberry, its color washing over the back and wings, with clean, unstreaked flanks. Females and young birds are brown and streaked in both: a female purple finch has a bold face, a white stripe over the eye and a dark cheek, where a female house finch’s face is plain. House finches live in towns year-round across most of the US; purple finches breed in the North and along the Pacific coast and reach most of the East only in winter.
Black-capped or Carolina chickadee
Where you live tells you more than the bird does. Black-capped chickadees live across the North and Carolina chickadees across the Southeast, and the two meet in a narrow band, from Kansas to New Jersey, where they also interbreed. In that band, look at the wing: a black-capped shows bright white edges to its wing feathers, a Carolina is grayer; the black-capped’s bib also ends more raggedly. Their songs differ more clearly: two whistled notes, fee-bee, for the black-capped, four, fee-bee fee-bay, for the Carolina.
Goldfinch in winter or pine siskin
In winter American goldfinches lose their yellow and turn a plain olive-brown, which leaves them easy to mix up with pine siskins at the nyjer feeder. A winter goldfinch is plain, with no streaks, black wings and bold pale wing bars. A siskin is brown and streaked all over, with a thin, sharp bill and a flash of yellow in the wings and tail when it flies. Siskins come and go: some winters a feeder fills with them, other years there are none.
When a bird stumps you
Take a photo, even a blurry one through the window, and try Cornell’s free Merlin app, which suggests a name from a photo or from a song. Then check the suggestion against the bird’s range and season. A camera feeder’s automatic name is a suggestion too, worth the same check.
The bird seed chart draws the 27 commonest feeder birds with the foods and feeders each uses, and narrows them to the one you saw by where you are, the month and its size, colors and marks. Each feeder page shows the birds that come to it.