General

Painted Bunting: Beautiful, medium-sized bunting with bronze-green back and bright red rump and underparts. Head and nape are blue. Wings are dark with green shoulder patches. Female has green upperparts, yellow-green underparts and dark wings. Juvenile resembles female but is duller.

Range and Habitat

Painted Bunting: Breeds from Missouri and North Carolina south to the southeastern states and west to New Mexico, Oklahoma, and throughout Texas. Spends winters from the Gulf coast states southward. Preferred habitats include brushy tangles, hedgerows, briar patches, woodland edges, and swampy thickets.

Breeding and Nesting

Painted Bunting: Three to five light blue eggs with red brown markings are laid in a cup nest made of grass stems, rootlets, and bark strips, lined with moss and hair, and built near the ground in a bush or small tree. Incubation ranges from 11 to 12 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Painted Bunting: Eats mostly seeds in winter and insects, spiders, and snails in summer. Forages on the ground; also strips seed from grass stalks or snatches insects from spider webs.

Readily Eats

Safflower, Apple Slices, Suet, Millet, Peanut Kernels, Fruit

Vocalization

Painted Bunting: Song is loud, clear, and variable, consisting of a series of high-pitched musical notes. Call is a sharp, metallic "tsick."

Similar Species

Painted Bunting: Male is unique; female is much greener than other female buntings.