Finch - An Introduction

Finches come in a wide variety of colors, patterns, and personalities. Most finches are easy to care for. It is active, entertaining, and handy. These species can live in a fairly small area, so they make a good home pet. They are also less costly to purchase than many parrots and soft billed birds.

These lovely charmers are undemanding, so adding them to your home doesn't add an unwelcome burden to a busy schedule. Unlike a parrot, that may pout if you are unable to play with it every day, pet finches prefer to play among themselves.

The true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. They are predominantly seed-eating songbirds. Most are native to the Northern Hemisphere, but one subfamily is endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily called monotypic at genus level is found only in the Palaearctic. The scientific name Fringillidae comes from the Latin word fringilla for the Chaffinch. It is a member of that last subfamily and it is common in Europe.

Many birds in other families are also commonly called "finches", including some species in the very similar-looking waxbills or estrildid finches of the Old World tropics and Australia; several groups of the bunting and American sparrow family and Darwin's finches of the Galapagos Islands, which provided evidence of natural selection and are now recognized to be peculiar tanagers.