By Laura Lance
September 17, 2023
The first time I saw a painted bunting was in the mid-1980s while tagging along with my brother, who was birdwatching in some fields and woods adjacent to his home near Wagner, SC. The sighting was actually more of a glimpse than a look, as the bird — first detected by my brother through its song — disappeared as quickly as it appeared in a flash of color flown from one leafy canopy to another.
The second time I saw a painted bunting was thirty years later, in 2016. Looking out the window one April morning, I saw something curious and said. “Why does that bird have a green leaf stuck to its back?”
Looking through the binoculars I saw that it wasn’t a leaf, but a brilliant patch of lime-colored feathers on the most fantastically colored bird I’d ever seen. “A painted bunting!” I exclaimed. I quickly took photos to document the sighting. These, below, were the least blurry of the batch.
I shared the photos with my brother and fellow birdwatching friends who urged me to keep my eyes peeled for the female, who should arrive any day. Sure enough, she arrived a week later — a small parrot-green bird with breast feathers in shades of yellow and peach that, at times, seemed to emanate a light, like a sunrise.
Since then, the painted buntings have returned every year. They have also increased in numbers. In 2018, two pairs came to the feeders. More arrived in subsequent years. I could never completely confirm the numbers. They are quick little birds and quick to flit away at the slightest disturbance. There were enough of the birds, tho, that I began referring to them as a colony of painted buntings.
This year, I finally confirmed a total of five males. How did I do this? I spent the first week or so after their arrival studying the birds, trying to memorize the color variations and subtle shape differences of each bird. Some are roundish, others more sleek and elongated; some have vivid red breasts, and others tend toward orange; the color patches on different birds vary in size and shape. No two painted buntings are alike! Through observing, I’d already determined that we had at least four different males, but I suspected more. Then one day, the implausible happened. All five males arrived to the feeding area at once, confirming my suspicions. The photo below, taken by iPad, doesn’t prove the existence of one, much less five painted buntings, but I post it here to preserve the moment.
Each spring, the first male painted buntings arrive like clockwork around April 14-16. One to three weeks later the first female arrives. The birds are always famished on arrival and spend long, long spells at the feeders. This is the only time I’ve seen them refuse to budge when other birds approach the feeder or try to bully them away.
So where is the mystery? It happens sometime in July. The buntings disappear entirely from the feeders. Each time this has happened, including this year, I’ve been alarmed and saddened, thinking something must have happened to the birds. And each time, including this year, the buntings reappeared to the feeders in late August or early September. The only difference this year is that I’ve slowed down enough to give the matter some thought, record their return on the calendar, and do a bit of research.
I don’t have a definitive answer to the mystery, just a pretty good idea, courtesy of several sources, including the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology site. As it turns out, painted buntings spend most of the year eating seeds from the fields, marshes and, as available, bird-feeders. During breeding season, however, they switch to spiders and insects such as caterpillars, wasps, flies, grasshoppers, weevils and beetles, which they feed to their young. During breeding season, they also tend to forage higher in the trees, sometimes 30 feet off the ground.
When the buntings returned to the feeders this year in early September, they were in full molt, looking disheveled and moth-eaten. Their feathers have since mostly come in, and the males are back to vividly colored perfection. Soon, they’ll be ready to make their return to Cuba and other points south where they’ll spend the winter.
The females and young have been all but absent this year. I do remain a little concerned, especially since a wave of avian pox swept through in mid-summer, forcing me to take the feeders down for two weeks. I’ve decided that, rather than worry over their plight, I’ll assume this to be another mystery that might be solved one year.
For now, I know that the original five males appear to have survived the summer, including the one with the dangling, deformed leg, who has been here for two summers now, answering the question, “Do the same birds return every year?” It appears they may.
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I purchased the mesh tubular feeders a few months ago back in January and almost immediately the painted buntings started coming to the feeders first it was only the females and then the males started to come. This lasted for about 3-4 months and then they went away mid April. First the males disappeared and then the males started showing up. . I sure hope they do come back. Anyway, I love this article. Thank you so much.
Loved your article! I live in TX and we only see the painted buntings for maybe four weeks – mid July through mid August. I have a plastic bird identifier guide,And the male bun tong
Hi I live in Miami Florida and this is the second year I have been blessed with visits of painted buntings and Catbird. They’ve been here since October 2023 and now April 26 2024 only two females are still visiting feeder. I believe the males left last week. The catbirds a pair, also left last week. I was curious to see that only two females stayed behind in these last few months there were about 8 males and 14 females.
Good morning. It’s been a few days since you wrote. I’m wondering if the females are still there, or if they’ve departed. I think there’s a lot to learn about painted buntings, including their changing migration habits in recent years, which has them populating western South Carolina in large numbers and also, perhaps, wintering over north of Florida in larger numbers. There are also what appear to a few juveniles arriving with the adults to South Carolina in April. So many mysteries! Am curious to know when the females in your yard begin their northward migration.
I think the males migrated one or two nights ago. I only have a few females left coming to the feeder. I wonder if I should stop feeding them so they follow the males.
Hi Lucie. That is interesting, how the females have lingered. Maybe they’re just not quite ready to take off yet? My inclination would be to keep the feeders up to continue feeding these hungry migrators.. The males and females do often seem to arrive at different times in our area. Some people see the males first, others the females. I’d be curious to know if/when the females depart.
I have had male at my feeders for the last few days – he’s just gorgeous! I’m in north central Florida.
The birds have returned to my feeder! I think I saw a female yesterday flitting about, but this morning I’m sure I saw a lone male at the feeder. I’m glad to see they survived hurricane Helene and made it back for the winter.
We have had Painted Buntings at 2 houses since 1998. The female was always on the platform feeder with millet, peanut butter on a piece of driftwood and sunflower seeds, both black oil & gray striped. This platform drew the most birds including warblers, thrush, mockers, cardinals by the bushel, towhees, blue grosbeaks, wrens, sparrows, blue jays, tits, chickadees, woodpeckers, indigo buntings, gold finches, bluebirds for the mealworms & suet, purple & house finches, tanagers, orioles & even a great crested flycatcher tried out the peanut butter & suet but over the 5 summers the pair nested in our boxes they never came to the feeders.
At this, my last home, on a creek behind a half acre back yard, purchased 12/17,2017, we have not seen as many of the species that we hosted in Hollywood on 22 acres! We have many more bluebirds here which have nested multiple times in our bluebird boxes & taken advantage of the live mealworms. The older pair, fledged over 2 dozen broods in the past going on 7 years. They are back as of 1/24/24 & choose their nest box. I’ve seen them multiple times a day going in & out of their chosen box but as of today they have not started bringing in nest material. We have had a Carolina wren pair build a nest in a huge pot of split leaf philo in my sunroom in 2022. They fledged 3 & led us on a merry dance getting the young out of the room. Mon & dad came in through a small hole in the screen & the babes just could not figure that one out! They had to be caught & put out the door by hand. Today my 9 yr old granddaughter, who found the 1st inside nest, found a brand new nest again in the sunroom but in a nest box that needed a new viewing panel that I totally forgot about at summers end last year. The back is off & there is a perfect new wren nest right inside so it looks like we’ll have baby wrens again! Oh goodie….
The male painted bunting had been seen by both my granddaughter twice & my housekeeper once. I thought they were teasing me knowing he was the one bird I never seem to see. On 1/24 I was looking at the bluebirds on the nest box when there was a flash of color & there he was! It was 10:40 am & he checked out the millet, ate a few mouthfuls & flew off when a red bellied woodpecker male aggressively flew in. I’ve not seen him since but the others saw him in late November & in early September so apparently the pair are year long residents. I’ve bought feeders with cameras for the millet & hope to get some good pictures. Hopefully we will see him all spring, summer, fall & winter maybe seeing the young too! The female is a regular visitor year round so maybe poppa will be back soon & come often!
I had one male at my feeder 1/20/24 in Polk county in central Florida. I got several pictures of him. I have never seen one before but would love to see more.
I had one at my bird feeder this morning, here in Va Beach,VA. I was shocked. Never saw one before. The temp here was like 15°. Beautiful bird.
Thanks so much for commenting. I have heard of a number of local painted buntings overwintering in area (Aiken, SC/Augusta, Georgia) and this gives me hope they’ve survived the recent frigid temps.
This morning, I refilled my feeders, as I recently ran out of food a few days ago. Within five minutes, I seen the most beautiful bird I’ve definitely not seen before, on my feeder. It dark, green and blue at the head, lime green on the back, and a beautiful red chest and stomach area, and the underneath near the tail was orange fading, almost to maybe a grayish color? It was hard to tell because I didn’t want to get close because every time Bird or myself got near it it would fly back up to the tree. I was intrigued by it, so I looked online all day trying to figure out what kind of bird it could be, but it wasn’t any native Bird that I was looking at. And then when I went online to purchase a birdfeeder from walmart.com, birdfeeder with one of those that were in my yard so I googled it, and it was in fact a painted bunting. I have never heard of them, nor seen them. it was so beautiful though, that I was determined to find out what kind of bird this was! We have a couple of birds in our yard since we moved to 10 years ago that were beautiful, but we’re also a mystery? I’m gonna report my siding to the national Audubon Society after reading this because this article states that the birds come to his yard like clockwork between 14th and 16th to Wagner South Carolina. Well today was April 13 and I live on the outskirts of Aiken county right off of Wagner Road! So now I’m definitely sure that this was the bird! So yes, I believe it’s safe to say that these beauties did survive the cold snap we had! I see that in the article it says that the females came about a week later than the males every year, so I’m gonna make sure to add a few more suets and black sunflower seeds out there and be watching for the females in the next few days! I will try to remember to get on here unless you guys know, or if any more males come. I will try to get better photos if I can because I got so blurry really all you can see was the red chest and blue head! I didn’t want to run inside and grab a different camera because I was scared it would runoff so I just took the photos from a distance with the cell phone I had in my hand!
Also, I use talk to text, especially when typing something so long. Of course, when you do that, you have to proofread it before posting, which I forgot to do, so there may be lots of grammatical errors here in my post. Just thought I’d mention it because I really do know where all punctuation marks should go, and what should/should not be capitalized! Talk to text on this new iPhone messes up almost everything I say! So, Hopefully, you guys understood what each sentence was supposed to say! And again, I’ll try to update you guys on any new sightings of this bird species! And just for location reference for my sighting today, April 13, I live near the fiberglass plant on Wagner Road in Aiken County! I live about 1.5 miles off of the main highway down a paved Road. The houses are not back to back here, but I would say there’s no more than one to 2 acres between the houses on my street and there is a good bit of traffic, which did not seem to bother the bird! He only flew off when another bird on the feeder bullied him, and then again when I got about 15 feet from the feeder, so I backed up And then he did return to feed some more
I also just realized that you were the one who wrote this article. If I’m able to get better pictures, I will let you know on here so I can try and share them with you. I’m curious to know if they have come to your yard this week! Especially since my sighting was one day before the date you said that they normally appear in your yard! I definitely don’t think that’s a coincidence since I live so close to Wagner! One of the other birds that has been a mystery to me, which I haven’t seen in a while now, was beautifully colored pink bird that we never could get close enough to see the details of! All I can tell you for sure was at the bird was almost the color of a pink flamingo! And it would show up late fall or early spring because I just remember that the grass was never green yet when it showed up, and was still like tall brown weeds in my backyard and all we could see was the pink bird hopping up and down in the hay-like grass. Me and my husband both seen this bird a few years in a row, but I haven’t noticed it lately! Please let me know if you have any idea what type of bird that may have been or if you may have seen one before? I know we’re known to have some rare bird sightings around this part of South Carolina! Also, sorry for the late comments, I just realized what time it was! We are on a third shift schedule in my household, and I tend to forget that sometimes when posting or commenting online!! You have a blessed day and good luck to you with your painted bunting bird sightings the next few days/weeks coming up!!! Please feel free to share with me if you would like to exchange sighting info for this year in our area! (My email is amandaabney1@icloud.com)
Hi Amanda! I’m so happy for you that you have been graced with painting buntings to your yard this year! The first male arrived to our feeders on April 17. A second male arrived yesterday, on April 21. We’ve been watching for females but haven’t seen one yet. Keep your eyes peeled for bird the same size, but colored green, almost like a parrot.
Our painted buntings tend to be shy and skittish, and easily bulled away from the feeders by other birds. They like millet seed (the tiny, pale whitish bead-shaped seeds in mixes) and will also eat black sunflower seeds.
They tend to nest in shrubby bushes or dense trees. We always take care to finish all pruning by April 1 to avoid disturbing nests.
I asked a birder friend about your mystery pinkish-colored bird. He suggested looking up pictures house finches. They look like sparrows dipped in raspberry juice. If the bird was solid-colored, maybe a male summer tanager. During the molting season, in particular, they can take on a pinkish hue. Good luck with identifying the mystery bird, and I hope your painted bunting stays for the summer. They are a joy to see in the yard.
I’m in Vero Beach, Florida and have been thrilled to have up to five male painted buntings and many females at my feeders all winter. The females are still here, but I haven’t seen a male in a week. My curiosity about this prompted a google search which led me to this article! I miss the extravagance of the males, but am appreciating the subtle beauty of the females knowing that they too will be gone. Soon, and for too many months, it will be almost unbearably hot and humid and I’ll be yearning for the return of our beautiful weather and my favorite snowbirds!
I love the coloration of the females too — the subtle greens, some green like a parrot, others a more mossy green — and those heavenly shades of gold and apricot on the breast that seem to emanate light. That the females are slow to leave Florida confirms my observation of the females arriving 1-3 weeks later than the males. Thanks for writing!
I live in Ft. Lauderdale and the males disappeared from my feeder about a week ago. Some females are still hanging around! I wonder when they will join them.
I would imagine any day now. Our first male arrived to Aiken, SC one week ago, on April 17. A second male arrived on the 21st, and a third male on the 23rd. Our first female arrived today, April 24, famished and looking a bit frail.
Thanks for your response, Laura. Now I know the females migrate later than the males and to keep feeding the females until they leave!
I feel exactly the same way. I am in west palm and about a month ago the males stopped coming to the feeders. The females lingered a couple additional weeks and now it’s been 2 weeks since I have seen a female at the feeders. Occasionally I’ll see one or two in a tree in my backyard but they are hard to spot. I had red once somewhere that the males are much more skittish especially around bigger birds and other males and that can make them not appear as often as the females
I live near Ft. Lauderdale. The males left first in the middle of April, and the females a few weeks later. The last two, a male and a female, left just a few days ago. They always come back the first week of October. It’s so exciting to see them return.
They’ve been coming to my backyard for years but I never saw them only heard them. My neighbor told me about them. This year I put a feeder out and have seen three males and five females. I live near Ft. Lauderdale. They arrive in October and stay until April.
So glad to hear you have some painting bunting residents in your yard. I wonder if some of our South Carolina painted buntings are migrating to Florida?
Yes they do come to Florida! I see them in my backyard October- April.
We have a pair that are apparent residents year round. I’ve seen the female at the white millet feeders all year long. Others in my household said they saw the male several times but I doubted them. They knew how badly I wanted to see a male. I was watching a pair of bluebirds checking out nest boxes on 1/24/24 at 10:40 am when I saw a flash of color & there in his AWSOME color was the male Painted Bunting!! He was happily tucking into the white millet when a large red bellied male woodpecker aggressively flew in & landed on the suet feeder right next to the millet feeder. The male bunting fled. I have not seen him since but hopefully he will be back & I’ll be watching!! We’re in North Charleston, SC in Dorchester County. There is a half acre back yard with a deep water creek right behind us. Across the creek we have a large strip of mixed trees with many bushes & thickets. Apparently this is their preferred habitat. I was amazed that they were even here since we are only 5 miles from the I-26 & 2.5 miles from a major through fare. I guess the creek, bushes & trees cover enough acreage to make them happy. Hopefully we’ll have more of these fabulous birds decide to add to this pairs habitat!
We have now seen the large male & female with a smaller male & female. I put a feeder pole farther out in the backyard about half way between the house & the creek. Stocked it with a large feeder with millet & sunflower hearts . A mealworm feeder, suet feeders & a fruit/nut/sunflower heart, chopped peanuts mix I make up in-house. Much cheaper & stored in a metal small trash can stays fresh.
I can’t wait until we see young!
We have at least two gorgeous males wintering in our yard in Central Florida. First time we have seen them since we moved here 18 years ago. I got some great captures on my new bird cam!
Yes we’re in Orlando and have one male and a female right now.we’ve had an Oriole in the past and a indigo Bunting too.lots of yellow rumped warblers this time of year too. And of course The resident Woodpeckers. If I didn’t have a suet feeder I would have ne er known how many wonderful birds are around here.
I loved your article and share the excitement when I see the painted bunting that first came to my feeders 2 years ago, a male and female. This year we had at least two couples. Hopefully more next year .
The most beautiful male bird I’ve ever seen. Females although not as striking or colorful, still beautiful and a lime green color.
Phill
Thanks for the pictures of this beautiful bird. I think I saw 1 a few years ago in Aiken. Nothing since. Hoping they will return.
is there a particular seed or mixture that gets their attention? we are big into bluebirds and get a lot and their chicks with mealworms. would love to attract some buntings. we live adjacent to the horse district, not in the country.
I think a big part of the draw is the habitat — open areas bordered with mixed edges of trees and shrubs that provide dense foliage. Between our yard and our neighbors’ yards, there is a lot of this. I suspect the first place that drew buntings was our neighbors’ huge 20’ loropetalum hedge.
Painted buntings are partial to white millet. I buy the Nature’s Song finch blend from Kroger that has white millet, sunflower chips, red millet, and Nyjer/thistle seed. This mix also draws a good mix of year-rounders (cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers, finches), as well as a wonderful variety of migrating birds and passers-through in spring (blue grosbeaks, indigo buntings, rose-breasted grosbeak, scarlet tanager, and a variety of finches, including goldfinches).
We have several bluebird houses, but they only faithfully use one. I’ve never supplemented their feed, but this week, there were some youngsters on the shrubs watching the other birds at the feeders, and I wondered if maybe I should offer them mealworms. This might also be appreciated by the painted buntings in breeding season. If you have a mealworm feeding method/feeder to suggest, I’d appreciate.
The first time I saw a Painted Bunting was in 2015 I gasped at it’s beauty and it flew away and I had not seen one until February of 2024. We have four males and at least one female, they are on the feeders daily and they even get some of the peanuts out of the shell. We have so many pictures they are so beautiful.
They love white millet.