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. I know the Blue Jay isn’t a bunting, but I it looked good so I included it too.
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. Then of course there is global warming adding its twist to the problems.