What caused damage to a Campbell house finch’s beak?

DEAR JOAN: A female house finch, I believe, that has been visiting our backyard feeders for several days in a row, has a very deformed beak.

It appears that her lower beak is grossly long and her upper beak is very small. She feeds by scooping up seeds.

Have you ever encountered such a bird? What would cause her deformity? Is it possibly a birth defect? She seems very healthy otherwise.

— Robert and Sharon, Campbell

DEAR ROBERT AND SHARON: The good news in all of this is that the bird appears healthy despite the wonky beak. Some animals with injuries, frailties or differences don’t fare as well. We like to say nature is cruel, but I prefer to think of it as determined.

Birds can have beak abnormalities for a number of reasons, including physical trauma, poor nutrition, exposure to pesticides and other contaminants, disease and infection, and congenital malformation.

We can’t know for certain what caused the damage to your visiting house finch, but from the photo you took, it looks to me more like an injury. She might have flown into a window, breaking off the top of her beak, or was caught in something that caused the breakage.

But she has learned to live with it, an excellent example of dealing with the hand you are dealt.

DEAR JOAN: For the last two weeks, monarch butterflies have been mating while flying around my clematis vine. Since that time, I have seen approximately three dozen caterpillars feeding on the vine. They have a central dark stripe and orange stripes on either side, and have long black spikes on them.

Could this vine be an annual breeding ground for the caterpillars? Also, the vine seems to be getting stressed by this activity.

— Ron Thibault, Saratoga

DEAR RON: You might be seeing monarchs flying around, but the caterpillars are not future monarch butterflies. Monarch caterpillars have rounded bodies with horizontal white, green and black stripes, and they are smooth bodied.

What I think you’re seeing are gulf fritillary caterpillars. The description you gave is more in line with the fritillary caterpillar. The fritillary butterfly looks similar to a monarch, being mostly orange with designs of black and white.

While the monarch caterpillar will only eat milkweed, the gulf fritillary caterpillars are slightly less discriminating. While they prefer to chow down on passionflower vines, they have been known to eat clematis vines.

Whether your clematis will survive the onslaught might depend on whether you are growing early or late bloomers. Early bloomers like light pruning after flowers appear, blooming on old wood. Late bloomers bloom on new wood, which requires a heavier pruning.

Clematis goes dormant in the winter, and some varieties die back to the ground while their roots remain viable. Keep an eye on your plants to see how they are doing.

As to whether your backyard is now an annual breeding spot, the fritillary butterflies, like the monarchs,  migrate twice a year, returning to the same general areas. So while they might like your garden now, there’s no guarantee they’ll return every year. If you want to welcome them back, plant some passionflower next spring.

The Animal Life column runs on Mondays. Contact Joan Morris at AskJoanMorris@gmail.com.