Our State: Winged Rainbows
September 02, 2025
The French call painted buntings — a bird the size of a house finch flitting through the shrubs on our southernmost shores — “nonpareil,” or “without equal.” They’re right. Each adult male painted bunting carries a rainbow splattered across his body: red underneath with a lime-green back, bluish-purple head, red eye ring. They seem too dressed up for North Carolina’s coastal scrubland, wearing their Sunday best to a pig pickin’.
“They’re the most colorful bird in the United States,” says Brian O’Shea, assistant curator and collection manager of ornithology at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. “The texture of their feathers impresses me. The brighter bird colors have feathers with a glossy, iridescent texture, and painted buntings are covered in that.”
Dr. Eleanor Spicer Rice highlights these Winged Rainbows in the latest issue of Our State Magazine …
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