This was the first Purple Finch I'd photographed in my yard, indeed the first one I'd seen there, where House Finches are the most common birds. The two species are easily confused, but this bird has the distinct white-brown facial pattern (the female House Finch's face is unpatterned), a notched tail(HOFI's is usually squared-off), and a longer bill with a more nearly straight upper edge (culmen). Compare http://www.pbase.com/tgrey/image/26291610 . As Mike Rogers notes, the gape and the rufous tips to the greater coverts show this to be a hatch-year bird.