Wow, did I get a thrill when I looked out at the feeders off my back deck. There were several purple finches eating black oil sunflower seeds.
I checked my records for previous visits from the purple finches and noted that I generally haven't seen them until January and February.
The male purple finch has a beautiful raspberry pink coloring. You can see the one on the right is fussing at the one in the middle then off that one goes.
The male has the raspberry pink coloring on his head and breast, with some brown tinges on the back and white strokes on the belly.
The female purple finch has light brown on her upper part of the body and white strokes on the belly but it's her white eyebrows that help me identify her.