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Indigo Bunting
Passerina cyanea
Family: Cardinalidae (Buntings)
Description: The female is warm brown with a whitish underside that has faintly-colored thin chest streaks and a whitish throat. The male is pretty much the only bird of this size that is almost entirely deep blue.

"Passerina" means small North American bush-loving finches, or songbirds in general.
"Cyanea" is Greek for the dark blue color which is also called cerulean, ultramarine or indigo.

The male's plumage is iridescent: Indigo Bunting feathers have no pigment; they are actually black, but when light shines and reflects through the feathers from different angles it makes them appear blue - sometimes even with green, purple and black. In the fall, the male is brown with a streaked chest due to molting which may help its survival during migration.

The adult male becomes entirely blue by spring's breeding time. Bird scientists, ornithologists, have called this a partial "prenuptial molt" and partial wearing away of the brown feather edges and bluish-looking feather tips. A young male may have a white belly in their first summer. Indigo Buntings can interbreed with the Lazuli Bunting - which happens where their ranges overlap.

The male bird has about a 100-note repertoire - which he might sing in full sunlight from a roof or chimney-top. The male may sing as many as 680 songs an hour from sunrise to sunset until he attracts a mate - the entire time following his prospective female mate hour after hour after hour... Even after a female joins him he keeps singing! While the male is often both seen and heard, the female is relatively quiet. The female focus is often on incubating the eggs and tending to the young.

Nesting: The female builds a nest which is a well-woven shallow (not deep) cup of twigs, leaves and tree bark lined with thin grasses, cotton, tiny root and feathers. The female incubates one, sometimes two broods of 2 - 6 eggs. The Indigo Bunting nest is often trespassed on by the Brown-headed Cowbird who lays her eggs in the Indigo Bunting nest.
printable field guide compliments of www.neotropicalbirds.org

Size: 5 - 6 inches

Diet: Insects, spiders, caterpillars, small beetles, grasshoppers. Seeds of grasses and weeds.

Habitat: Broad leaf woods, edges of woods, open brushy fields, garden shrubs.

Call: Sharp
"chuck," "spit" or "spuk" then "bzzzt"

Song: Bright, high, clear paired phrases often sung in pairs ending with a fading volume--
"sweet-sweet, chir-chir, swee-swee, see-see"

Range: (May - late October) One birdwatcher reported having seen a flight of indigos come in so exhausted from flying against Gulf of Mexico winds that they could walk right up to them. Buntings navigate their migratory route by the constellations.

Breeds from southeastern Saskatchewan and northern Minnesota south to Texas, the Gulf Coast, and central Florida and eastward as far as New Hampshire. They winter in Southern Mexico, Panama and the Virgin Islands.
© 2003 by Trust for Wildlife. Developed with Knowledge Environments, Inc.