Photo by Gary Youngblood
Every morning, we amateur birders look out our windows in hopes of seeing a unique bird at one of our feeders. Not that there is anything wrong with our regular visitors, but to catch sight of a cedar waxwing or a red breasted grosbeak every now and then is nothing less than exciting.
But imagine, if you can. taking a sip of morning coffee, peering over your steamed up glasses and seeing this bird. A painted bunting. Occasionally, they fly through these parts.
Gary Youngblood had one show up at his feeder.
Here’s his account.
“Come see, come see, it’s got a blue head! Quick!” my wife frantically called from the hallway. Linda, usually subdued, was hyped and stammering. What has she seen? I quickly headed down the hallway. Still stammering, I heard Linda say, “Camera!” as I joined her at the master bath window, overlooking a couple of our bird feeders.
Whoa! There on the feeder was an unmistakable painted bunting. No wonder Linda was stammering with such excitement. The bird did have blue head, but oh, so much more. Ridiculously colored and dressed for a party, a Mardi Gras party! Alive with color!
The painted bunting is a very rare winter visitor to central and western Virginia. Although occurring much more frequently in Virginia’s Tidewater or Coastal Plain regions—principally as a winter visitor—this flamboyantly colored bird is still considered rare, creating a lot of excitement anytime it visits a bird feeder.
The male painted bunting is so gaudily colored that it challenges description. Almost identical in size to its cousin, the indigo bunting, the bird is about 5 ½” inches long from beak to tip of tail. The multicolored bird has a blue-violet head, a lime-green back that transitions to a bright, but darker green on its upper wings, with a bright red throat, belly and rump. The darker tail and primary wing feathers are tinged with red and green. A bright red eye ring stands out against the head’s blue background. The adult female’s coloration is drab in comparison, yet could be described as a lovely pale green.
Many consider the painted bunting to be the most vividly colored North American songbird. Surely, the little finch-like bird’s outlandish dress would seem more appropriate for New Guinea—alongside the bird of paradise—rather than in Virginia. Interestingly, the painted bunting is in the same family, Cardinalidae, as several conspicuously colored birds such as our bright red, northern cardinal, the blue grosbeak, and the scarlet tanager.
Although recorded visits are rare across most of Virginia, the reality is that painted buntings could be seen here almost any month of the year. A review of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird site shows that Virginia’s painted bunting sightings include submitted reports for every month of the year except August.
Central Virginia sightings also remain very rare. Cornell’s eBird shows a painted bunting reported in Fluvanna County at in 2008. Another bird was reported in Charlottesville four years later. Our Appomattox painted bunting showed up in May 2020.
I am convinced that a painting bunting could show up almost anywhere in Virginia. Keep some millet in your feeder and keep your camera handy. You will not need your bird book for identification. The painted bunting is unmistakable!