Toponymie | Canton de Potton | Place Names

Chemin des Roselins would translate to Purple Finch Road.  The Purple Finch is the bird that Roger Tory Peterson famously described as a “sparrow dipped in raspberry juice”.  For many of us, they're irregular winter visitors to our feeders, although these chunky, big beaked finches do breed in northern North American and the West Coast.

Separating them from House Finches requires a careful look, but the reward is a delicately coloured, cleaner version of that red finch.  If you look for them in the woods, you may hear their warbling song from the highest parts of the trees.  Male Purple Finches are delicate pink-red on the head and breast, mixing with brown on the back and cloudy white on the belly.  Female Purple Finches have no red.  They are coarsely streaked below, with strong facial markings including a whitish eye stripe and a dark line down the side of the throat.  Purple Finches readily come to feeders for thistle seed and black oil sunflower seeds.^[1]