> I believe the yellow-orange finches are nothing more
> than young males.

If that were the case, then we would have "yellow-orange" House Finches
in Western New York. Since we do not have them (at least I have
never seen one among the many hundreds I see in any given year), I
would tend to refute this idea. We do have breeding House Finches and
we do get young birds at our feeders.

Also, I have read (sorry, I can not place the reference) that the
"yellow-orange" House Finches are more common on the western USA,
particularly in the SE Arizona area. I believe the coloration has more
to do with geographic populations than age.

Kurt Fox
kfox at kodak.com
East Avon, NY