12 facts about painted bunting

1. Males and females look very different.

While both sexes are brightly colored, only males have the characteristic bright red, lime green, and blue markings. Juvenile females and males are bright lime green.

Both males and females have eye rings with different colored feathers. The male’s eye ring is bright red and the female’s eye ring is pale yellow-green.

2. You can find them in the Southern United States, Mexico, Central America, and some Caribbean islands.

Two populations of Painted Buntings live in the United States during the spring and summer months. They are divided by several states and dependent on different parts of the Caribbean.

Western species are those that live in the south-central United States, including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana during the spring and summer. They migrate south through Mexico into Central America, where they spend the winter.

A small eastern population spends the breeding season on the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. Some live farther inland along the eastern border of Georgia and South Carolina.

3. Nightingales like to live in dense bushes that obscure their view.

This helps camouflage them from potential predators as well as their insect prey. They also like fields with tall grass, where they can fly between tree trunks and forage for insects on the ground.

When males perform in front of females, their songs can often be heard before they are seen. Despite their bright colors, they are skillful evaders. Females blend in even better than males because they have green plumage that easily camouflages into foliage.

4. Females do all the work of raising the chicks.

Painted Bunting females do most of the work of raising the chicks. Since these songbirds have at least two broods each year, she does something to optimize the time spent raising their young.

When the chick is about to mature, it can mate again and start a new nest. Her mate is left to feed the nearly-adult chicks and watch them leave the nest.

5. They like backyards with lots of trees.

Lots of low-growing vegetation allows them to hide from view. Larks are songbirds that like to live along the edges of forests and fields.

They like to have safe areas where they can fly and hide. They can also easily find grass seeds in open areas where these plants grow most often.

6. Eastern and western species molt at different times.

The molting process allows birds to grow new feathers to replace old, broken, and damaged feathers. Eastern painted birds molt before migrating south to Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the eastern Caribbean islands. Their migration was shorter than that of the Western group.

Western groups molt midway through their migration; they stop in Mexico, where they molt and then continue migrating. This is very rare in songbirds; Normally only waterbirds molt in this intermediate resting place.

7. They are often caught and sold illegally as pets.

For at least a century, people have captured and sold larks as caged birds. This is still practiced in Central America and Mexico. Wildlife conservationists in south Florida work continuously to curb this illegal trade.

Capturing painted birds may seem harmless, but it puts additional strain on natural ecosystems because there are fewer birds to fill their ecological niches. It also reduces the genetic diversity of the population because there are fewer individuals reproducing.

8. A female can give birth to up to four broods of chicks per year.

Painted Buntings are usually monogamous. While males can have multiple mates, females usually mate with only one male. During the breeding season, a successful pair can have up to four broods of chicks.

This is possible because the incubation and nesting periods are very short, only 11 and 9 days respectively. After a batch of chicks is born, the female immediately moves on to build another nest for the next batch.

9. Their name in French means “unparalleled”.

In France, bird breeders call Painted Bunting by another name: ‘passerin nonpareil’. The second part of that name, nonpareil, means “unparalleled” in French. This is probably related to the bright color of the male’s reproductive plumage.

10. Males protect their territory by fighting fiercely.

Male nightingales are notoriously violent when defending their territory. Unlike other songbirds that only chirp and chat with each other, Painted Buntings often engage in all-out fights.

The male has a territory of about 3 acres which he protects from aggression by other males using all forms of attacks. He does not hesitate to peck and hit other males with his wings. Sometimes, these attacks deal light or moderate damage.

11. Their favorite food is seeds.

During most of the year, Painted Buntings prefer to eat seeds. They forage for grass and seeds by jumping around on the ground. Their favorite seeds are usually grass and weeds.

After the breeding season ends and before the birds migrate south, robins are more interested in seeds than at any other time of the year. Their purpose is to accumulate energy reserves during this time to be able to fly over large distances.

12. Painted Buntings can live to be over 12 years old.

Following a scientific expedition in Florida, researchers captured a Bunting drawing that was more than a decade old. This bird may be part of the eastern population.