Bird of the week 2023 | Week 2

Painted bunting [MichaelWarren.com]

Painted bunting.

Every so often a painted bunting descends like grace itself on some unworthy backyard feeder in Ocala. The male is ridiculously colorful, like an explosion of a box of crayons. The females and juvenile males, like many birds, are less dramatic. It doesn’t seem fair. This one was a brief visitor to the Ocala Wetlands Recharge Park, one of Ocala’s local birding hotspots.