Having observed lots of Painted Buntings over the years I am impressed with the amount of variation in color that they have.

At first, I thought I was imagining it or that the differences in colors that I was seeing was just the result of my limited photography skills. It frustrated me so much that I even went out carrying a gray card so I could manually set the white balance to the exact conditions that my photos were taken. To my surprised and frustration, I was still seeing a variety of colors, especially on the “red” parts of the birds.

When the gray card didn’t solve my problem, I investigated the possibility that the issue was that the red channel was being over exposed like I frequently see happening when photographing birds like Vermilion Flycatchers and Scarlet Tanagers. However, after reviewing a bunch of histograms I decided that wasn’t the issue either.

Eventually I got over some of the excitement of seeing a Painted Bunting and really paid close attention to the color and found that the birds really are differently colored from individual to individual, sometimes in fairly drastic ways. The camera might not be perfect at accurately recording those colors but the variation is indeed real.

Recently I encountered this male Painted Bunting and was really impressed with how different the red parts are from the typical. Near the base of the tail I can almost see some purple or blue color showing. The head and back both look pretty typical but that muted red really gives the bird a different look.

I wonder what causes these differences. Is it something about this bird’s diet or some genetic difference? I wonder what impact the color difference has on getting a mate.

Whatever the reason for it is, I think it’s pretty neat to be able to enjoy an interesting bird like this one.


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Passerina ciris