In April 2017, my wife and I set up a basic bird feeder in our Staten Island backyard. We wanted to attract the many birds that were passing through the region during their northward spring migration. We expected to see a variety of Sparrows, Thrushes, Finches, Warblers, Nuthatches, Chickadees and Titmice. What we didn’t expect to see was a very special visitor to our backyard.
This visitor was a bird that we expected to see during our upcoming trip to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina in late May, but not anywhere in the New York City region – ever! You see, the bird that showed up in our backyard on May 1, 2017 was 600 miles north of its typical northernmost summer range in southeast North Carolina. It is considered one of the most beautiful passerines (perching birds) in all of North America; the male Painted Bunting!
My wife Doreen spotted it first and called my cell phone to tell me. As crazy as it sounded, I knew she must have seen it, because the bird’s plumage is an unmistakable rainbow of color not seen on any other North American passerine. (I knew the bird was way out of its range, but didn’t learn until later on, just how truly rare the sighting was. The last sighting of a male Painted Bunting in New York City had occurred in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in early December 2015. It remained there for about two weeks and caused such a stir, that hundreds of birders from all over the region converged on the park each day during that time just to have a chance peek at it. I also learned that the last documented sighting of this bird on Staten Island was way back in 1985!).
I decided that we needed to report the sighting online, along with photographic proof, using eBird.org. The next day, Doreen dutifully watched the feeder area for several hours until the bird flew into the yard late that afternoon. With an old Nikon camera at the ready, she managed to capture the Painted Bunting in a few photographs, two of which I posted on eBird.org, along with my report, that evening. Those images, one of which you see here in this post, are now part of the permanent ornithological record of the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York; one of the world’s foremost bird research facilities! The report caused a lot of excitement in the birding and naturalist community here on Staten Island, which resulted in us making new friends who are not only very knowledgeable, but also very nice people.
On the morning of May 4th, I got up before sunrise and with camera in hand, went downstairs to see if the Painted Bunting would show up again and provide me the opportunity to get a few additional photos. After waiting for about 45 minutes and with the dawn light barely filtering through an overcast sky, the Painted Bunting paid a special visit for the last time. It flew in quietly from the west, landed on the ground about 20 feet in front of me and turned in profile to the left. Then he turned and faced me directly for a few more seconds. Then he turned in profile to the right, posing for my camera for a few more seconds before finally flying off to the east, never to be seen again. But wow! For two people brand new to birding, the very special visitor was quite a 4 day event and it was great while it lasted!