On December 4 and 5, 2015 I went to Prospect Park to see the vagrant Painted Bunting – a life bird. A painted bunting looks like something from a coloring book. There were at least 50 birders at a time surrounding the little bird, who didn’t care a fig about the people. It was very hard to photograph because of all the birders. I couldn’t get a good view and when I did someone invariably jostled me. I tried for two days and managed to get a few semi-usable shots on the second day. Three of the photos shown here are composites of two photographs created at the same location; “Painted Bunting in the Grasses” is a straight photo (not a composite). I know the Blue Jay isn’t a bunting; it’s my creative choice to include it in this series.

Environmental note: habitat restoration and management is crucial to our local birds not just to vagrants. There a lots of feral cats wandering the parks in NYC. Vagrant birds are not a good thing if global warming is the cause.

See  The Famous Painted Bunting by Sherry Felix on The Linnaean Society of NY’s site. I am their webmistress and a council member.