![]() By 1998 nesting had been documented in 22 counties ( Hertzel and Janssen 1998). Counties lacking reports were all confined to the very northern regions of the state (Cook, Lake, Carlton, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake of the Woods, and Kittson). By the spring of 1992, House Finches had been observed in 80 of Minnesota’s 87 counties. Janssen ( 1992) provides an excellent, comprehensive overview of the species’ rapid range expansion in Minnesota. More records quickly followed from all corners of the state, including the first documented nesting in Rice County in the summer of 1989 ( Janssen 1989). This was the first fully documented (with photograph) record for the state. Then, three years later, Breckenridge and his wife observed and photographed a male at their feeder in Minneapolis in December 1983 ( Breckenridge 1984). Described in detail, the record left no doubt that House Finches were indeed seen, making it the first official sighting of wild House Finches in the state ( Bruggers and Bruggers 1981). ![]() The first was in the fall of 1980 in Minneapolis, when a bird was observed on two dates in November and December at a backyard feeder. It was nearly 10 more years before the first well-documented reports were submitted. These records were not well documented and left open the possibility that the observers had seen Purple Finches. Within 30 years, in 19, the first observations of House Finches were documented in Minnesota ( Freedland 1971 Arneson and Arneson 1972). The rest, as the saying goes, is history. At the time, no one thought these West Coast birds would survive the cold, northern winters ( Elliott and Arbib 1953). Although the evidence is circumstantial, it seemed that one or more local dealers released the birds to avoid prosecution. Unfortunately, due to the vigilant efforts of one private citizen who worked to bring an end to the illegal sale of songbirds, word spread among New York pet dealers that the finches they had were in possession illegally. The first deliberate introduction of House Finches occurred a few years later, sometime around 1939, in Brooklyn. Recognizing them as wild-caught birds, he turned them over to the New York Zoological Society but pondered if others in his position had released untold numbers of the birds. Cant, an ornithologist in New York, received a pair as a gift in 1933 that were purchased from a pet shop in New Jersey. They were also shipped to pet dealers in the eastern United States, where they were advertised as “Hollywood Finches” or “Red-headed Linnets” ( Elliott and Arbib 1953 Cant 1962). Often an economic pest in California fruit orchards, they were trapped and sold locally. For many years in the early 20th century, there was a profitable trade in caged House Finches. Nearly 100 years passed before the House Finch was once again sighted in Minnesota as it rapidly expanded westward following its introduction in New York City in 1939. Roberts ( 1932) credited it as the “most complete and satisfactory list of birds in Minnesota up until that time.” His note about the finch specimen was documented in a longer article he published in 1890, titled “A List of the Birds of Minnesota” ( Cantwell 1890). Cantwell, an early naturalist who spent several years in Minnesota in the late 1880s before moving west. The specimen was saved, and a skin was prepared but subsequently lost. Roberts ( 1932) reported that a male, either a long-distance straggler or an escaped captive bird, was shot by Robert McMullen in Minneapolis in the spring of that year. ![]() Although most Minnesotans regard the House Finch as a newcomer to the state, the first official record was nearly 150 years ago, in 1876. The House Finch’s rapid expansion across the United States is a story of the consequences of an unintended introduction and of a species’ remarkable adaptability.
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