The painted bunting is a gorgeous, brightly colored bird. If you haven’t seen one – try to – along with scarlet tanagers because those are really pretty too, but the focus of this post is painted buntings. Over the last 30 years, research has shown that painted buntings have been declining. This information comes from the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Just some history: during the 18th and early part of the 20th century the painted bunting was a highly popular cage bird (no surprise there), but this practice was banned in the US. However, the painted bunting pet trade still continues in their wintering places in Mexico and Cuba. Also, the painted bunting is declining due to habitat loss, like many other bird species.
In North America there are two populations of painted bunting, the western and eastern population. The western population is found and breeds in Texas and Mexico and winters in the south of Mexico. The eastern population is found and breeds in the more southern Atlantic shoreline and winters throughout the Caribbean.
Currently, the eastern population has shown some recovery signs, which is good news, but the bad news is that it may not stick and the species may still continue its decline. This is why data collecting of the populations is so important and the data is only focusing on the eastern population. Researchers have put on differently colored bands on hundreds of buntings so that people can easily record which bird they saw. Painted buntings will also visit birdfeeders and people can record data from that also.
Volunteers are very important for determining if the painted bunting population is recovering because scientists can’t do it all themselves. So if you are in the eastern region – se what you can do to volunteer, but I’m really not sure who you contact for that.
