Bahamas (NB), Belize (NB), Costa Rica (NB), Cuba (NB), El Salvador (NB) (P), Guatemala (NB), Honduras (NB), Mexico (B) (NB), Nicaragua (NB), Panama (NB), USA (B) (NB).
Vagrant to Cayman Islands, Jamaica (NB).
Population
Estimated population is 4,500,000 (2010) and decreasing.
Status LC
Habitat destruction and degradation through urban development, road building and agricultural intensification, and capture for the cagebird trade are the main threats.
For more information see BirdLife International Species Factsheet.
Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) [XC764925]
by Leonardo Guzman Hernandez from San Simon Cienega, Cochise County, Arizona, United States (call)
Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) [XC54641]
by Daniel Lane from Jekyll Island Historic area, GA, United States (song)
Subspecies
Genus sometimes placed in family Emberizidae. Hybrids with Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) and Varied Bunting (Passerina versicolor) described. In captivity has hybridized with Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) and with domestic Island Canary (Serinus canaria). Subspecies poorly differentiated and widely separated geographically, and they differ significantly in migration and moult strategies, suggesting that there is very little gene flow between them, and that they perhaps warrant treatment as two separate species. Further study is required.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
ciris (Linnaeus, 1758) - Breeds on Usouthern Atlantic seaboard from North Carolina south to central Florida; migrates to southern Florida, Bahamas and Cuba.
pallidior Mearns, 1911 - Breeds in southern USA (south-eastern Kansas east to western Tennessee and Mississippi, south to central and southern New Mexico and Texas) and adjacent Mexico (Chihuahua east to north-western Tamaulipas); migrates to Mexico (southern from central Sinaloa, southern San Luis Potosí and southern Tamaulipas, but absent from central highlands) and south to western Panama.