Painted Bunting

Here is another shot from my memorable day with this male Painted Bunting. I found an active nest site and just staked it out. Soon I found his favorite perches and sat up next to one. When he would come to that perch and sing, I would let the frames fly. He would then fly to another perch, sing for a while, etc... He made his rounds and every 15 minutes or so, he would fly back to this tree and I would then get some more images. 16GB's later, I have plenty of images to draw from for a while :D. The female never came out in the open...she stayed back in the thicker trees. This male was fierce in guarding his ground. He nearly killed a House Sparrow that landed beside him on one of the perches. Too bad I did not get that captured...feathers were flying!

Taken with a D300, 600VR, f/4, ISO 400, 1/320th SS.

http://www.jasongharrison.com/images/7976_L.jpg

Hope you enjoyed.

Certainly a multi coloured fellow, and I like the calling pose. I would maybe take away the leaf coming out of his back. There are signs of a bit of over sharpening, especially around the eye.

Good focus and calling pose. Agree with Stuart's suggestion re the leaf and would probably do the same for the one coming from the breast. Sounds like a great opportunity.

Agree w/ others about the leaves. Beautiful details and colors. Very nice pose and eye contact.

beautiful head details,singing pose!

Thanks for all the comments...seems just about everyone thinks "the" leaves by the breast and out the back need to go. Here is a repost doing that...

http://www.jasongharrison.com/images/7976_ps_L.jpg

Thanks...

An excellent photo. I would remove some of the leaves behind the birs. Very well done.

I like the repost without the distracting leaves. Beautiful coloring and pose.

Both work for me but I prefer the repost. Killer singing pose and killer sharpness. The blue of the head looks a bit too purple to me; is anyone else seeing that?

ps: Did you use audio?

Repost deals with the leaves perfectly - good job, Jason.

To answer some questions...No I did not use Audio. This bird was found...by sheer luck, someone saw it flying down a tree line along a deep ravine. I was told about it and I went and observed it but it never offered any good shots that morning. With more observation, I noticed it kept flying back to a certain tree. Many days later...I saw the female in that tree and could see a clump that she was always on or near. I assumed it was the nest. The male CONSTANTLY circled the area, always singing, very aggressive. One other male was sighted in this area and I and others assumed this male was fending off his ground. For several weeks this occured until all of a sudden he no longer sang much or was near as aggressive. It was not long after that we saw 1 VERY young male... by the clump in the tree. Never did see any other signs of other young ones...

As word got out about this bird...people tried to get some shots of it, and some tried Audio. Their findings were somewhat inconclusive as the bird was making it rounds anyway and would fly perch to perch. The addition of audio did not alter this daily ritual at all. I did speak to someone who tried audio late on this bird, i.e. after the fledged bird was gone...and he said the audio did nothing at all as far as a response goes.

As to the head color...nothing was done on my part to alter the color...it was a very cloudy day this particular morning. When the sun came out, his colors changed a great deal...his head took on a shine that was hard to expose for...it almost turned silver blue if that is a way to describe it.

No, this day was just one of those days I was in in the right spot, at the right time, and ready. These are very rare this far north in Missouri. As it was, it was a 2 hour one way drive to its location from my home.

I will admit one thing...I learned of this bird by a birding friend of mine. She told me the area to look for and said she had a morning where it sat perched in front of her for over an hour singing away. So I can't take credit for finding the bird.

Thanks Jason for the info and the story. You worked hard and did well.

Great singing pose, love the sharpness in this one. Repost is a big move. Thanks for sharing this beauty.