Mr. Hollywood Gets Lucky

Last Saturday a neighbor knocked on my door. “There is a bird stuck in my light fixture,” she told me, and she had tried to get it out without success. I must admit that she now had my full attention. I followed her down the street to her house where she pointed out the hanging light fixture on her front porch with a bird in it. There was an old bird nest in the bottom of the fixture, leaving very little room between the nest and the fixture’s glass sides. The bird had squeezed in and could not get back out.

What a male House Finch was doing in a nest, in a light fixture, in December, is a very interesting question that I unfortunately don’t have an answer for. But after removing some of the nest material and springing “Mr. Hollywood” from his light fixture jail cell, I was telling the neighbor about her bird when I suddenly realized that this common bird species has a history that is even more interesting than this unusual event.

A surprising fact is that, prior to 1940, the House Finch was a western species that was not found here in the eastern United States. But some enterprising entrepreneurs decided they could make good money putting House Finches in cages and selling them to pet stores in New York City. They called the caged birds “Hollywood Finches”.

Their new business venture did not work out as planned, and just before the entrepreneurs were busted for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, they released their inventory of birds and the evidence flew away. There were only a few hundred House Finches released but within the relative short span of time from their release in 1940 until the early 1990's, the House Finch became one of the most abundant birds throughout the east.

House Finches were a dream come true for anyone selling bird seed. They thrived in residential areas, they loved to eat and there were a lot of them. Of course, as all good parties do, this one came to an end. The eastern population of House Finches began a rapid and steep decline starting in 1994 with the discovery of some finches in Washington, D.C. infected with Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis. It is commonly called "crusty eye disease" in this area, and it became normal to see some infected birds in every small flock.

So our Mr. Hollywood is a lucky bird. Not only did an alert, caring neighbor arrange for his rescue from the light fixture, but far fewer cases of the avian conjunctivitis have been seen around here in the last few years. So there is a very good chance that he and his offspring, and may there be many, will live long and productive lives. That’s good for Mr. Hollywood, and that’s good for Mr. Bird Watcher!  ;)