Painted Buntings are one of my favorite birds, and I’ve logged more Painted Bunting observations on iNaturalist than anyone else in the world. So I know what a male is supposed to look like: blue head, green back, red underparts.
On November 2, 2025, a male showed up at my Jacksonville feeder where the red should have been, but it was bright yellow instead.
This is called xanthochromism, or a xanthic bird. Normally a male Painted Bunting turns the pigments in its food into red feathers. In a xanthic bird, that process doesn’t fully happen, so the feathers come in yellow. Researchers think it can come from a genetic mutation, diet, or both, and it’s hard to know which for any one wild bird.
However it happened, it’s rare. Very few photos of xanthic Painted Buntings exist online, and the Painted Bunting article on Wikipedia doesn’t mention the variant at all.
Like nearly all my Painted Buntings, this one came in for white millet, which is the best food I know of for attracting them.
Watch the video:
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