How the Painted Bunting Was Created

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How the Painted Bunting Was Created
By Hal Haralson, Austin, TX

I met Marcus and Lucy Rogers during Creative Week at Laity Lodge this summer. I smiled. God has not lost His touch when it comes to creating beauty! He pulled out all the stops when He made these two.

Marcus, an attorney from San Antonio, was the artist/instructor for bird carving class. He is dark, lean, and muscular, and about 45 years of age. He works out in the gym three times each week. He is “First Assistant” to God—Bird Division. If you have seen one of Marcus’ birds you wonder whether Marcus did it or God did it.

Lucy is a tall, willowy, strawberry blonde . . . astonishingly beautiful. She radiates beauty and love. She is a perfect “10.”

Adam and Eve could not have graced the Garden of Eden with more beauty than these two.

But this is about the painted bunting. . .

My favorite place to walk is on County Road 302, two miles west of Kingsland, Texas. This sandy road runs four and one-half miles north from State Highway 1431 and dead ends at a 100-year-old ranch house.

Judy and I walked its hard-packed sandy surface for an hour as the sun rose yesterday. A fawn came within 10 yards of us before it turned and ran. I walk an hour every day, usually alone. Yesterday I was feeling really good . . . decided to go all the way to the ranch house. The round trip took two hours and ten minutes to cover eight and one-half miles. Not bad for a 69-year-old!

CR 302 has hills that are covered with oak and mountain juniper (cedar) to the south and open fields to the north. Piles of brush give birds additional cover.

We saw mockingbirds, cardinals, a crane, bobwhites, and two painted buntings. Their songs comprised a symphony . . . “Morning has broken, like the first morning . . . Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird . . .”

I focused my Leopold 10 x 50 hunting binoculars on one painted bunting. He was only 25 yards away. It seemed as if I could almost touch him when I found him with the binoculars.

He was no larger than a sparrow . . . but it was as if God had taken all of the colors of the spectrum and had flung them on one small bird . . . red, orange, blue, green, yellow . . . unreal! If you have never seen one in the wild, you should buy a bird book!

The species is very secretive. Few people ever get far enough out into the woods to see them.

How was the painted bunting created? Perhaps it was like this:

God had been painting birds all day.

Brilliant colors . . .

Red . . . the cardinal
Green . . . the green jay (in South Texas: green to chartreuse, with a head of black and blue)
Blue . . . the jay
Yellow . . . the golden-cheeked warbler
Orange . . . the brilliant scarlet tanager

Day is ending. Brushes must be cleaned; a separate brush was used for each color.

God says to Marcus, “Hand me a sparrow.” It’s the smallest, most common of birds. No color.

Red—Blue—Green—Yellow—Orange. Brush by brush, color by color, God transfers the remaining paint from each brush onto the feathers of the humble creature in His hands. The sparrow is transformed into a splendidpainted bunting.

We are all “sparrows” until we give our lives to God, the Master Painter, and let Him do THE COLORS.

Dedicated to Marcus and Lucy Rogers.