Hello, I'm also your neighbor. I live near Cartersville. There have been an abundance of House Finches along with American Goldfinches and Pine Siskins at my BOSS and Nyjer feeders this winter. They seem to travel together. So, it wouldn't surprise me if you also get a visit from them also. Happy for your success! Jean NW GA

I wonder if it might be an escaped White-headed Nun finch? Was the head pure white or was it mottled? What were the body markings like? If there is mottling or a piebald/pied effect it might be partially leucistic. This is a link to a picture of what I think is probably a partially leucistic house finch - see the mottling and some traces of the normal red coloring http://www.pbase.com/image/109596442 The nun finch (white-headed munia) is a caged bird. Escaped birds apparently easily hybridize with other finches. There are many subspecies of nun finches - they range from white heads just from the neck up to well down onto the shoulders, from a reddish brown body color with the tail the same color to a deeper red, or a more grayish brown body and tail. It would be hard to guestimate what a hybrid might look like. I don't know how well an escaped White Headed Munia (nun) finch would overwinter, but a hybrid would probably handle that better. If you can get a picture - several actually - that would answer a lot of questions. An escaped or hybrid version of a white headed nun finch seems unlikely - but so does a leukistic bird, LOL! This is a white-headed nun finch: Here is a link that might be useful: Google image search for white headed finches

Normally House Finches winter over in this area but for reasons known only to the birds, they all disappeared in early December and are just now starting to return. According to the state Audubon Society Purple Finches winter here but they are cyclical. About once every decade we see an over abundance of them, but generally they are rare and in some years totally absent. I went back and did some additional research on the House Finch. It appears that they are really a non-native species that were originally kept as cage birds. A small number of them were accidentally released on Long Island,N.Y. in 1940 and they first appeared here in Ohio in 1964. By 1980 they had spread across the entire state of Ohio and have established a very successful breeding ground here. What I found most interesting in my research is the fact that the railroads are attributed with the wide spread of both House Finches and the European House Sparrow. Both species were initially released in the New York area. Having been introduced into an urban habitat they were initially unfamiliar with the local flora and fauna, and therefore relied heavily upon man made food sources. It is believed that many initially found the most abundant sources of food near warehouses or food processing plants where grain or other foodstuffs gets spilled from railroad cars during the loading and unloading process. Some of the birds were inadvertently closed up in the railroad cars when the doors were closed and they were transported to distant cities before the cars were opened again. This accounts for why their is an abundance of these birds in urban areas while they are often considered rare in rural areas.

I'm enjoying so many American gold finches, pine siskins, red polls, house finches, purple finches, warblers, occasional blue jays, woodpeckers, red- and white-breasted nuthatches, and various "visitors" this winter. I feed both black oil sunflower seed and nyjer seed, but in separate feeders. The nyjer is in an "upside down" finch feeder, only the American gold finches can get the seed out, and then only one seed at a time. I certainly cuts down on the waste and the feeder hogs. The other thistle lovers can pick up the dropped seeds from the ground. I offer black oil sunflower seeds in several types of feeders according to the species I'm feeding. It's the favorite seed of nearly all the birds, but certain birds prefer certain types of feeders. I have a large hopper feeder for BOSS, and a smaller one for peanuts (for the chickadee-dee-dees and nuthatches). I also offer BOSS in a tray feeder during the coldest months, and in a mesh feeder that the woodpeckers like. Besides the BOSS, nyjer, and a few shelled peanuts, I offer suet in four different feeders. Woodpeckers don't like to "share" and I found out by setting out more feeders I have many happy woodpeckers.