Baby Bird...Pine Siskin, House Finch, Sparrow?

While my husband and son were working on the new flower bed yesterday - they noticed this little guy on the ground. One of our pomeranians was walking dangerously close to him and the bird made no effort to ecscape. We became concerned that our female pom might see the bird and harm him. She enjoys (at the ripe old age of 11 years old!) "playing" with the squirrels and other birds that we feed. I walked close to him, hoping to get him to fly off of the ground and to a safer spot but he didn't move.

I picked him up - afraid he'd get hurt on the ground by my dogs. I wanted to put him somewhere safe. We debated calling a friend of ours that handles wild bird rescues but other than not wanting (or being able to fly on his own) to fly away- he seemed fine. No aparent injuries or malnourishment.

I hand-fed and raised exotic birds for years before having our children but I was quite reluctant to take this baby out of his environment without any significant injury or other reason. We decided to put him somewhere comfortable but safer than on the ground and pray that his parents would find him and assist him naturally.

Since they were digging out a flower garden, they had soft tufts of grass they were hauling away. I picked up one and gently placed the little bird on it and set it on top of a outside cabinet we have behind our shed. The "cabinet" (more like a rubbermaid outdoor storage cabinet) is close to our privacy fence AND a line of trees that run along behind it. I hoped that it would provide some coverage and shelter for the bird and his parents. We found him not too far from this fence line so I also hoped his nest was in one of the taller trees.

I was hoping to identify him - for our nature study- but also to discover a better idea of if his nest was, indeed, in the trees along the back fence.

I THINK he is a juvenile pine siskin but it's difficult for me to tell. We have A LOT of these birds in and around our bird baths and feeders daily - one night last week I counted almost 40 birds around our "bird tree" where we have bird baths and SEVERAL different types of feeders.

Here are two others - they all look quite similar and I'm up in the air as to which species of bird they are. I'm between:

pine siskin

House finch

Sparrow

but it could be others - I've looked at wrens also. Does anyone have any ideas? It appears that so many of them look this way and I'd really love to be able to tell the children what species of bird they are (with some certainty). :) Thanks for any and all help!!!!

On my blog http://www.homeschoolnaturestudy.blogspot.com/

I have a photo show of the different birds we are seeing - we have others such as the blue jay and cardinal that I haven't gotten close enough snapshots of yet but I'm working on it :)

My dear, dear husband is building me a huge post to hang our bird feeders and housese :) and I'm so excited ;) I'll post a photo soon :).