You've seen the painted buntings i show along the side bar and here is a normal adult male. My son took this shot at the feeder this summer. Note the bronzey green shoulders, middle back and part of the wings.
The male painted buntings migrate earlier than the females and young birds who are all green, so I was surprised to see a male at the feeder yesterday. Naturally I took pictures. Then I realized it was quite different, so I took some more.
He has no bronze on him at all. He's a shade of red where he should be bronze
And then when I downloaded the pictures, I saw that he was missing his left eye entirely too. You'll have to click it larger to see.
Looks like he lost it in an accident, not a birth defect. He's done well to get to be an adult with such a handicap.
He reminds me of a pirate here--Avast, ye maties!
The painted bunting guy from the study that NC and SC are doing on the birds has been here to our house for banding painted buntings and I've sent him these pictures too. It will be interesting to see what they have to say.
