Summer 2018 (June 16, 2018) - Posted 9/2/18

Let me start off with apologies to Wendy Allen who contacted me on June 22, 2018.  It has taken me this long to catch up and I am truly sorry.  The information is still interesting and worth knowing.  Though we saw so many color variations in Painted Buntings with our FL winter work, this is something we never saw.

One June 16, there was a group of observers at the Baruch Marine Lab in Georgetown, SC that served as a PABU banding site 2007-2012.  They observed this banded Painted Bunting:

"Goldie" a very yellow Painted Bunting

Photo by Wendy Allen

As you might be able to see it is missing a color band above the SC split red/white.  After much searching of records by John Gerwin (NC Museum of Natural Sciences) and Wendy (and/or her folks there) it was determined that the missing band was black and had been applied below the split.  The bird was second-year when it was banded on 6/6/12 and was still green prior to the fall molt when it would acquire its male colors.  It was banded at this site.

Even more interesting was that this bird had been resighted and photographed on July 5, 2014 and was a typically colored male.

We can only wonder why it lost the red coloring in the between time.  Originally I suspected something genetic but that does not seem to be the case.

Wendy and the observers at this site also had another long-term visitor at their feeders.  YESE was banded on 7/15/09 as a second year bird.  It is still being seen, so it has survived 10 years.  It has been observed every year since it was banded.  Keep up the good work.  I can only hope I continue to get reports from FL hosts.