Message #1:

From: "Chris Thompson"
To: "Kristin Purdy"
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 3:57 PM
Subject: RE: Initial assessment

Hi Kris,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you regarding the photos you sent me of the ASY male Painted Bunting that was photographed in Utah on 24 July. To cut to the chase, my best guess - and it is, of course, only an "educated" guess - is that it is a wild bird. My reasoning for this is as follows:

As you are well aware, by late July, the plumage of adult painted buntings typically is rather ragged. This seems to be especially true of Painted buntings in the west (versus those on the east coast). I'm not sure why this is; it may reflect a more abrasive physical environment, on average, in the west vs the east. In any event, although you are right, of course, that cage wear could also cause plumage to show excessive wear, especially on the tail (as reflected in the bird in the photos), excessive wear, especially of the rectrices, is VERY common in wild birds by late summer (just prior to prebasic molt).

I remember that excessive wear precluded me from being able to take meaningful/accurate tail measurements on many specimens collected in late summer. The point, unfortunately, is that I don't think the wear pattern on the bird in question helps elucidate whether the birdescaped from captivity or not.

The plumage pattern that would most strongly support the hypothesis that an adult male painted bunting escaped from captivity would be if the plumage that is normally red was, instead, lighter in color, e.g., typically yellow. This often occurs and reflects either (1) inadequate and/or inappropriate carotenoids of the diet to support growth of red
plumage during molt, and/or (2) inability to appropriately metabolize ingested carotenoids, e.g., due to stress, poor health, etc. Small patches of yellow plumage MAY also be indicative of captivity; however if wild birds lose a patch of body plumage outside of the normal molt periods, they often renew the feathers with feathers that are abnormal
in color.

As you also probably know, Painted Buntings are common cage birds in Mexico (and perhaps in the US among Hispanics if they can catch them). Thus it is possible that an escaped cage bird made it from Mexico to Utah; however, probabilistically, the most parsimonious explanation, in my opinion, is that the bird in question is a bona fide wild bird.

Hope that helps. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

Chris
Chris Thompson, Ph.D.

Message #2:

From: "Chris Thompson"
To: "Kristin Purdy"
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2007 1:10 PM
Subject: RE: Initial assessment

Hi Kris,

Yes; I agree that the bird clearly is missing patches of feathers that do not correspond to any normal molt pattern; however, the question is: is this pattern of wear/feather loss more likely to result from captivity than conditions in the wild? I don't think the answer to this is at all clear, i.e., I do not think that captivity would be MORE likely to result in such a seemingly aberrant pattern. I certainly observed many such birds in the thousands of specimens that I examined.

Another reality check is that, as you probably are aware, painted buntings have shown up virtually all over North America (including the east coast, e.g., Pennsylvania) and Canada, the point being that wild Painted Buntings are clearly capable of showing up very far out of range; a "stray" Painted Bunting in Utah is not very far out of range,
relatively speaking. So.....taken together, as I said before, I think the parsimonious explanation is that the bird is from the wild.

Hope that helps. Again, I'm happy to discuss this more if you or anyone  else is interested.

Best regards,

Chris