An Old (sick) Bird

He must be the great-grandpa of the clan.  He has lost an eye - and look at that beak!  It definitely could use some dental-bird beakal-bird work.  I've taken a lot of shots of finches, some with missing eyes.  But I don't think I've ever seen one with such damage to the old schnozzola.  

It gave me a lot of respect for him as I watched him hop around the four sides of the feeder, all alone, doing his best to get at the seeds.  Seeing this guy made it seem worth having put it out.

Edit:  I have since found out, after some research on House Finches that a bird such as the one here is diseased.  House Finch Eye Disease, Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, was first noticed in House Finches on the east coast in 1994. In recent years, it has spread westward. Birds infected with this disease appear to have red, swollen, runny, or crusty eyes. In extreme cases the eyes become swollen shut and the bird becomes blind. 

The best ways to control the spread of this disease is to: keep your feeders clean using a 10% solution of bleach, and though it might sound cruel, remove the feeder from your yard for a couple of weeks. The latter results in the healthy birds looking for other sources of food and the sick birds becoming easy prey for predators, thus reducing the chances of infecting the entire flock.