Some of us birdwatchers have a question about whether the birds we are seeing at our feeders here in eastern OK are purple finches or house finches. I had identified them as purple finches, using the drawings and info contained in Birds of North America, by Robbins, Bruun and Zim, illustrated by Singer. My father has another book--don't remember the name--which says that since the release of several house finches on the east coast back in the early 50's, these birds have been spreading westward and now the eastern race of these original west coast birds are also in Oklahoma. Last year I saw what I believed to be a couple purple finch females, sparrow-like birds with a white "eyebrow", which the house finch female lacks. I saw 6 males of these birds at my feeder at once the other day, but looked in vain for a female. Does anyone know more about these birds than I do?