Painted Bunting

This brilliantly colored Sparrow is shy and spends most of its life in southern thickets and cypress swamps. Lack of cover in the arid parts of its range render it more conspicuous but it is far less sociable than its northern relative, the Indigo Bunting. Like this species it sings best in midsummer but usually from a brush pile or thicket. Its notes are less intense and it is not carried away like the Indigo, by any musical ecstasy. It is better known as the "Nonpareil" and is a favorite cage bird in Mexico.