Blessing #18: A Painted Bunting

Last week, while reading on the deck in my friend Diane's backyard, I heard a loud flapping of wings. There was something about it that sounded cumbersome and unusual, so I looked up and tried to find the bird.

And there it was--some type of heron, I thought, large and completely out of place in a backyard in Georgetown, Texas.

Soon another flapped by with its impossibly large wings and landed on a tree nearby. Crazy.

When we got to our sewing class in Austin, we were talking about all kinds of things and somehow the birds came up.

"Oh, those are Yellow Crowned Night Herons," Kari said. "They hang around Austin in wet springs."

With the mystery solved (and oohed and ahhed over), we moved on to discussing other birds, favorites we'd seen--or not. The painted bunting was everyone's favorite. I'd only seen one once in person--in passing when driving in a rural area just beside a nearby lake. But what a sight it was.

And then ... my very own painted bunting appeared, as if by magic, the next afternoon. I tried to get photos of it the first day, but it flew too fast for me. I was more stealthy the next day, but the glare from the sun and the window made photographing difficult.

Still. A painted bunting. In the feeder on my patio. Every day this week.

With a good mix of house finches, Carolina Chickadees, cardinals, titmice, and wrens to boot. And even a raccoon and a squirrel to keep everyone on their toes. And a sudden, massive swarm of gnats.

Diversity in action.