Passerina ciris ciris

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Order                 :Passeriformes

Family               :Cardinalidae

Genus                :Passerina

Species              :Ciris

Subspecies         :Pallidor

Explanation of the name:

The name comes from a myth in which a human transforms into this bird .

Nonpareil is a French word which means “has no alike” which refers to the beautiful colours.

Description:

The Passerina Ciris measures 13 to 14 cm (4.5 to 5 inches) and has a small conical bill. The male has a (indigo) blue head and a read eye ring. Underparts and rump are deep red. Its wings and tail are dark green to black and its back goes from deep to dark green. In captivity and in lack of insects the red turns into orange and yellow. The female is yellow-green, with dark wings and tail.

An immature male looks like a female. Then suddenly (after the second moult)  it starts to get blue patches on the head and red patches on the chest and it becomes mature (can take up to 2 years). To determine the genus of young birds, some breeders pick some feathers from the chest. If the new feathers are red, its a male for sure. If they are green, it might be a female, but this is not 100% for sure and after the next moult it can still be a male. As a consequence breeders sometimes buy a couple which does not breed the first year. The next year, it seems they bought two males. In the worst case, they start to fight untill one gets killed.

Habitat:

The painted bunting breeds South-West of the USA and North of Mexico. It is a migratory bird that spends winter in Central America, Jamaica and the Bahamas. Originally, they lived in areas with dense understory and shrubs, away from human cuture. Now it lives in parks, fruit plantations, along borders of roads ,in agricultural areas with lower vegetation. Birdwatchers find them regularly on their feeding tables.

Behaviour:

The Painted Bunting is a rather nervous or fearful bird, singing males are the easiest to observe. It forages by searching for food on the ground and in low vegetation. It feeds mostly with seeds but also with insects and their larves. The song of the male has a lot of variation, he even sings at night. Singing, he defends his territory and keeps contact with other Painted Buntings to warn each other if something goes wrong.

In august they leave their breeding area and migrate in large groups to Central America (from Mexico to Costa Rica, in Cuba and South of Florida). They spend winter in groups, together with Indigo and Lazuli Buntings.

Breeding in the wild:

The breeding season begins early May and goes on until late July. During breeding time, the male defends his territory and he is very agressive towards other buntings. The nest consists of dry grasses, leafs, small branches, animal hear and is built near to the ground in a bush. The female breeds the 3 to 4 eggs during 12 days. The length to fledge is approximately 10 days. Normally it has 2 to 3 broods. The young birds are fed with insects.

Breeding in cages:

The best way to get breeding results is to keep one couple in a cage. Never put two males together during breeding season. You can breed them in cages of 1 by 2 by 2 meters, smaller cages can cause problems since they can be very violent against each other, the males against the females but also vice versa. A nestling female might not like the male to be in her neighbourhood. This is no general rule, some breeders are succesfull with small cages of 40 by 40 by 80 cm. In bigger cages (eg. 3 by 2 by 5 meters), you can keep them together with African and Australian finches, provided there are not too much birds. Don’t keep them with European finches or canaries, the males could fight and disturb the nests. Again, this is no general rule. An articlel tells about Painted Buntings and European Goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis) in a big planted aviary. They nestled about 0,5 meters from each other and the Painted Buntings helped feeding the young Goldfinches. Painted Buntings generally are very good parents, that’s why they are sometimes used as foster parents for eg. Rainbow Buntings.

To prepare nestling one can raise the amount of alive food (insects). The more variation, the better. Always be careful with mealworms, the remains of their skin might stick on the inside of the bird so it becomes ill, young birds might even dye. Insects they like are: larves of the black fungus beetle or “buffalo worms” (alive and frozen), fly larves or “pinkies”, mealworms (the white ones),  larves of wax moths, crickets, morioworms. One has to be careful with buffalo worms, they are the larves of the black fungus beetle and may contain some fungus. Feed them with dry bread during a few days and the fungus disappears.

They nestle in reed baskets which you hang at different hights (between 1 and 2 meters) in the aviary. They might nestle in a bush or bamboo given the opportunity. Sometimes it’s necessary to strengthen the nest a little with some thread or wire, especially if they made a nest in bamboo. If you see they are trying to build a nest in a shrub and they don’t succeed (because of lack of branches on that spot), you should hang a reed basket on that place.

The nest consists of 3 to 5 eggs which are incubated by the female during 12 days. The young birds are fed with insects by both parents. They are ringed on day 5 with a ring of 2.7 mm. They leave the nest after 10 days and are still fed by the parents during 3 weeks. Once they eat independently (millet) you can remove them from the parents.

As mentioned before, the males lose their beautiful red colours after the first moult in captivity (if they are imported), own elevated males might not colour red but orange or yellow. If they live in a planted aviary where they can find insects they will colour orange to red but they will never obtain the bright red colour they have in the wild. If you want them to be bright red, add a little colouring product for birds (red canaries), based on canthaxanthine, to the water they drink, not too much (half the dose for red canaries) and not too long (only during the moult, each 2 days). Otherwise the females will also colour red. The product may damage the liver if you give too much. Healthier and more natural red colouring products or plants are carrots, common chickweed (Stellaria media), paprika and spirulina. But they may not want to eat these products, you have to try and persist. Spirulina is a dried health-food supplement which you can mix in the egg food or straw upon the fruitor insects. It has a positive impact on resistance and fertility.