We’ve mentioned how skittish the painted buntings areblog; they make really lousy models. We have two photographs in our collection (Painted Bunting Pair that Nancy took in late March of 2010 and Male Painted Bunting that she took early April of that year). To get those pictures, Nancy had to set up a bird blind next to our feeder and wait. To make the blind, she set up our 8-foot stepladder about eight feet from the feeder and covered it completely with palm fronds. Early every morning she would crawl under the ladder, make a hole for her lens, and stand there for about two hours. It took her seven days of this to get the shots she was happy with.
By the way, we saw our first painted buntings of the season this week. First, we saw a female, as is typical for us, and then the male showed up a couple of days later.