Appearance:
Painted buntings are medium-sized and gloriously colored: males
are blue, red, yellow and green, females a greenish yellow.
Habitat:
The painted bunting is one of the most rapidly declining
songbirds in the eastern United States. Florida breeding and winter
season surveys show an astounding 4-6 percent annual decrease in
this species' numbers. In some areas, counts have fallen from the
hundreds to a mere handful.
Behavior: The reason for their decline is a puzzle, although one suspect
is the brown-headed cowbird, which lays its eggs in the nests of
other songbirds rather than building its own. In the competition of
nestlings for food, the faster-growing cowbirds win, often starving
the young buntings and even ousting them from the nest. Another
suspected reason for their decline is the illegal capture of
hundreds of adults for the exotic pet trade, especially in the
Caribbean.
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