A beloved rare bird returns to Raleigh, out of his normal range. How to see him.
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- A painted bunting returned to Dix Park in Raleigh, delighting local birders.
- Birders report early morning or late day offer best chance for sightings.
- Out-of-range appearances may reflect shifting habitats or climate change.
Members of the Raleigh birding community will toss their binoculars into the car at the drop of a sun hat for a two-hour drive to catch a glimpse of a rare specimen on their lifer list.
So as word got out this week that a familiar — if furtive — feathered friend was back in town, they practically flocked to Dix Park to get a look. While dozens of other visitors milled about in the vast sunflower field snapping selfies or zooming in on honey bees, the birders were up the hill behind the parking lot with their noses and camera lenses pointed toward the top of a mulberry tree.
“Psssssssh, pssssssh, psssssh,” Corie Latta hissed toward the vacant foliage Thursday morning, trying to call forth the painted bunting that has made what birders believe is its fourth pilgrimage to the Capital City in as many years.
It sounded nothing like the American Bird Conservancy’s recording of the painted bunting’s sweet song. But within minutes, as if summoned by name, he appeared, his blue head at the end of the highest branch, his ruby chest and yellow-green wings standing out like the angel crowning a Christmas tree.
The painted bunting is an impressionistic, tempera-colored thing, a member of the Cardinalidae family, and the most colorful of all birds that breed in the U.S., the Conservancy says.
The organization says the U.S. has two breeding populations of the painted bunting: one in the south-central part of the country and one that ranges along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to central Florida.
It’s not uncommon to hear of painted-bunting sightings near the southern part of the North Carolina coast, places such as Carolina Beach or Bald Head Island. But when a male showed up at Dix Park in west Raleigh in 2022, it lit up the social media pages, text chains and electronic mailing lists of the area’s well-connected birding community.
That’s what they’re called. Birders. Not bird-watchers, which sounds too passive for the passion and mobility required to whittle down birders’ life lists, the species they hope to see with their own eyes while they’re still able to hike or drive to the forests, fields or beaches.
The rarer the bird, the greater the satisfaction. And while the painted bunting is not particularly rare, it’s notably difficult to spot because it typically hangs out in dense undergrowth.
And it’s not supposed to be in Raleigh.
Biologists say a species may wander well outside its normal range for several reasons. It could be an outlier, like the painted bunting that spent the winter of 2015 in New York’s Central Park.
Or it could signal changes in habitat, such as a shortage of food or shelter that might be caused by climate change or over-development.
Unlike some hunters or fishermen who jealously guard the secret of nature’s riches, birders are eager to help each other out. They send out alerts with specific directions and when they’re joined on the ground by their friends, they describe the bird’s most recent movements as if it’s a community scavenger hunt where everybody wins.
This bird has never been captured and tagged, so birders say they can’t be sure it’s the very same melodious male they keep seeing. It doesn’t seem to matter.
“It’s just fun being outside with other people,” said Lori White of Raleigh, who snapped some fresh pictures of the painted bunting Thursday morning. “Especially to find a bird and lead other people to it. But even if it’s a sucky bird day, and you don’t see anything, you’ve been outside all day, and you go home and look at the photos and re-live it. It’s a great way to spend a day.”
How to see the painted bunting
Birders say the best chance of seeing the painted bunting that has been visiting Dix Park in Raleigh is to arrive early, between 6 a.m. and about 9 a.m., or in the late afternoon as the temperature cools. Park at the big lot off Hunt Drive near the sunflower fields and walk up the gravel road on the hill behind it. The bird visits the trees along the side of the road.
To confirm his presence, download Cornell University’s Merlin app to your phone and let it listen for the painted bunting to sing.
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This story was originally published July 25, 2025 at 4:30 AM.
