Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris), Rio Salado, Maricopa County

The Painted Bunting is a sparse late summer to early fall visitor to chiefly southeastern Arizona. North of Tucson and west of Nogales it is a casual visitor in se. Arizona (Monson & Phillips 1981). It is considered accidental in Maricopa County (Witzeman et al 1997) making it doubly unusual as a late fall and winter visitor to Phoenix. Since the Technicolor male makes the species a popular cage bird in some areas, out of time and place birds are sometimes suspected of being escapees from captivity, but that is speculative. This female or immature male Painted Bunting was found at Rio Salado, Phoenix on 24 November 2007 by Tom Gaskill and Rob Lane and was present at least into January 2008.

31 Decenber 2007, photo by Pierre Deviche