Buntings

My husband and I do a lot of birding when we travel, but we also feed the birds in our back yard. We tend to see the same birds over and over: cardinals, house sparrows, blue jays, house finches, mockingbirds, red-bellied woodpeckers, and downy woodpeckers. But every now and then, we get something a little bit different.

This weekend, we had two male indigo buntings hanging out on our goldfinch feeders (here's one of them, with a goldfinch on the feeder to his left).

We also had a male painted bunting drop by for a visit, but I wasn't able to get a good picture of him. He looks a lot like the indigo bunting, but he is even more colorful, with a green back, red belly, and bright red eye.

You just never know when you are going to see something different, right in your own back yard!