While visiting family on the South Carolina coast last weekend, my wife, Laura, and I decided to do some birding at the beautiful Botany Bay Wildlife Management Area on Edisto Island near Charleston.
Right at the start, we spotted what’s considered the most stunning, beautiful songbird in North America, the adult male painted bunting. It never fails to get a “wow” from me.
Perhaps no other word than “dazzling” best describes the sparrow-size bunting. With its vibrant red, green, yellow, blue and purple plumage, the adult male inspires awe among birders — both beginners and veterans. The late field-guide author Roger Tory Peterson called it “the most gaudily colored North American songbird.” The French name for it is “nonpareil,” meaning unrivaled.
Seeing an adult male painted bunting for the first time can take one’s breath away. Many first-time viewers think they are seeing a multicolored tropical parrot that escaped from a cage. (Females and juveniles are much less colorful, having nearly the same greenish-yellow coloration.)
Painted buntings are common summer breeding residents on the Georgia coast. They mostly prefer habitats in which they can avoid detection — swampy thickets, woodland edges and bushy areas. But at this time of year, with their breeding season wrapped up, they are less secretive and will visit backyard feeders offering small seeds like white millet.
I know some people who have made special trips to the Georgia coast primarily to see painted buntings. A good place to see the birds is on Jekyll Island. Occasionally, painted buntings will breed as far as Augusta and Macon, but they rarely appear as far north as Atlanta.
Come fall, most painted buntings will migrate to winter grounds in the tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, their numbers are declining, due in large part to habitat loss from development. In their winter grounds, they are often captured and kept as cage birds.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be last quarter on Tuesday. Mercury is low in the west just after sunset. Mars is very low in the west at dark. Jupiter rises in the east at about midnight and will appear near the moon on Monday night. Saturn rises in the east at sunset and sets at sunrise. Venus isn’t easily seen now.
Charles Seabrook can be reached at charles.seabrook@yahoo.com.
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