Sketch and story by Tom Godin,
September 29, 2000

A recent gallery walk in Vancouver turned into a marathon street tour. The warm day and the unrelenting concrete began to gnaw away at my energy and finally I was bushed. Luckily, our search for one particular gallery took us down to a plaza near the waterfront and the gallery featured a coffee shop. It didn't take a lot of convincing to get me to melt into a fatigued puddle atop a stool near the window.

Once the caffeine began to take effect, I slowly became aware of the cityscape outside. The shop was in an open courtyard surrounded on all sides by tall office buildings. The sky existed only straight above. The mirrored glass towers reflected each other and we were, for all intents and purposes, at the floor of a very deep, glass-faced, urban canyon.

Such an environment would, at first, seem quite inhospitable to wildlife but as I watched a few species of birds began to appear. I guess they were there all along but the coffee now coursing through my system made them suddenly noticeable.

The birds were mostly what could be expected in such a place. Any that thrived here would have to be able to capitalize on the food and shelter that presented itself.

The first birds I noticed were some House Sparrows hopping along a concrete planter. There were males and females intently searching for the dropped crumbs of the baked goods that were sold in the coffee shop.

A few Starlings flew quickly across the courtyard to some Yew shrubs that were growing in the planter in front of the coffee shop/gallery window. They were in the winter plumage; black with numerous white markings. They were seeking the red berries of the Yew trees which they plucked from the limbs and consumed whole.

Perhaps because I was sitting in place where haute cuisine was no doubt appreciated, and because I had heard of Starlings being eaten as food, I began to imagine a dish made of baked Starlings that had internally self-basted by eating the pungent, sticky, yew berries. No doubt my gallery walk was also giving me an appetite.

By now I was convinced that only non-native bird species such as Pigeons, Starlings, and House Sparrows could live in the world outside this window. But suddenly a Song Sparrow hopped jauntily across the planter. He flicked his tail nervously just as if it would do if it had been disturbed in a blackberry thicket. Its whole demeanor indicated that it was indeed a wild and vital creature. It must have made its way here from some heavy cover in the area to search this minimalist landscape for food.

Rejuvenated once again, we stepped out into the glass canyons.

Oh Those Carpodacus Finches

Again a stop at Skihist Park gave me a new sighting.

As I was sitting down at one of the park's picnic tables in the shade of the Ponderosa pines, ready to dive into a homemade pie, a little red finch in a nearby Saskatoon bush caught my eye. I got the binoculars on it quickly and was able to get a very good look at its features.

It was definitely not a Purple Finch. This bird's head had a light red colour. With its wings slightly drooped off of the back I could see the rump area over the tail was washed with a slight red as well. This bird was a Cassin's Finch, one of three species of reddish finches that can occur in the south Cariboo, and one that I had never definitely identified.

The males of the Carpodacus Finches, as this group is called, are thick beaked, red, Sparrow-like birds and they can give a person fits when it comes to identifying them. The females are all heavy beaked, brown and white birds.

The three Carodacus Finches are the Purple Finch, the House Finch, and the Cassin's Finch. Separating the females of the species comes down to seeing whether the undertail coverts are streaked, whether their crown feather are often erect, facial markings, and how the streaking on the chest is best described; small markings, larger streaks, or uniform streaks. It's quite complex.

The males of this group all feature the colour red somewhere on their bodies, except the House finch which is often red but may also come out in an orange to yellow cast, a feature that I have read, may have something to do with a variation in their diet.

I recognize the male Purple Finch by its decidedly unfriendly face. Its forehead seems to have pushed its eye down to a level that gives it a hostile expression. The House finch has in my estimation a 'blank' look. I have never spent enough time in the company of Cassin's Finches to develop a facial expression component to its identification but it leans towards the House Finch's more open look.

I have seen a lot of female Purple Finches and they too have the unfriendly face like the male, again from the eye seeming to be low and crowding into the gape of the mouth area. But an equally distinct feature of a Purple Finch female is the chest and stomach markings. The combination of the streaking of brown on white reminds me of the effect that adding blueberries to soft ice cream creates when only a slight swirl has combined the two. It is a striking bird in its own right.

The House Finch also lacks the bull neck of a Purple Finch. I call the Purple Finch the buffalo head because its neck is thick and goes right into the back with very little neck between the body and head.

Back to the Cassin's Finch at Skihist. It quickly flew off, leaving me to eat the pie. The Lytton habitat, with its drier climate, is considered the more likely area to encounter this species than the plateau climate of 100 Mile House.