Painted Buntings - That's one colorful bird!

Had the difficult challenge to photograph some colorful little birds in the dark shady forest this past weekend...but since they're one of the most colorful birds in North America, they're worth it even if you have to deal with some high ISO and lots of foliage to thread the lens through.

Painted buntings, notably the males, are just bursts of color, so they really stand out in the green forest. Shot the following with the A6300 and FE100-400mm GM lens and 1.4x teleconverter. Birds were about 15-20 feet away, through very dense branches and leaves - so I really had to thread the focus point through - and due to the teleconverter and the shade I needed to crank the ISO up to 6400 to shoot these little beasts:

Male painted bunting showing his full color array (ISO 6400):


Another look, facing the other direction (ISO 6400):


This was a popular perch, on this broken palm branch - they were feeding on a nearby tree with a bunch of other birds, and when the red-winged blackbirds and grackles swarmed in to feed, the buntings would retreat to this palm to wait their next turn - I set up with my lens pointing through a small hole in the foliage that gave me a view to this one stump where many buntings kept coming back to:


This time, a female bunting took the spot - she's much more dull compared to the male, but still a pretty green (ISO 6400):


Ironically, the weekend before, walking past this same spot, I had shot a cardinal perched on that very same branch: