A brightly colored bird never before seen in North Dakota has been hanging out near Dickinson this week.

Luann Letang, of Dickinson, spotted the male painted bunting eating at her feeder Tuesday morning as she was drinking coffee in her kitchen. Painted buntings are more likely to be found in the South than just north of Dickinson.

When she first saw it, she thought it was a bluebird but knew bluebirds preferred insects to birdseed.

She then realized, "This bird was not anything that had been here before. It had a bright blue head, a red breast and a green back," she said, "and I dug out my bird book."

Letang also called some local birders and got word to the rare bird alert about her visitor. She describes herself as "more than a casual birder" but not someone who would travel across the state to see a new bird.

So far, she has had visits from "dedicated" birders who came from as far away as Fargo and Grand Forks.

Although he has seen painted buntings on their home turf, longtime birder Ron Martin drove from Sawyer to Dickinson on Wednesday to see the colorful bird in North Dakota.

Corey Ellingson, a Bismarck birder, drove over and saw the bird at "about 6:30 Tuesday night."

He had seen painted buntings in Texas - "It was my most wanted North American bird," he said Thursday - but he wanted to see the painted bunting that visited North Dakota.

"It's an in-your-face beautiful bird," said Bismarck birder Dan Svingen, who made the trip to check out the visitor Wednesday night. He had seen them in Alabama.

The painted bunting is the first new bird sighting in the state this year, Martin said Thursday.

"Two new birds for the state in a year is pretty good. Some years we don't get any new ones," he added.

This is the peak migration time for passerines, or songbirds, and it's not uncommon for some to get lost.

"Basically, in the spring they, are migrating north and go too far. That's probably what happened to this one," Martin said.

Letang last saw the painted bunting at about 7 p.m. MDT Wednesday. She left for work too early Thursday for her feeder to have any activity.

"I imagine it's still around," she said by phone Thursday morning, but word posted on the North Dakota birding discussion list at around noon Thursday reported that the bunting appeared to be a no-show Thursday morning.

The North Dakota Birding Society records committee will document the painted bunting as a state first, said Svingen, who is the chairman of the committee.

"It's not a difficult identification," Martin said.

(Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)