Unusual Bird: Rare sighting of rusty blackbird, and unusual color house finch

This submission concerns 2 different birds seen in our latest Feeder Watch observations:

1. A rusty blackbird which I understand to be rare in this region. The 2 photos show the field marks quite clearly and include other birds which bracket the expected size for the rusty blackbird. We were excited to see this bird, which is new to us, and would appreciate if you could confirm that we have it correctly identified.

2. A house finch that has unusually yellow plumage. (Sorry the photos are such poor quality.) I know they say the color differences in house finches are diet-related, but it seems strange that this individual is so very different from all the other (male) house finches in our yard, which all have very similar red colors. Last winter we also had one or two distinctly yellow/orange house finches among a crowd of red ones. Any chance it could be genetic?