8/30/2023 0 Comments Indigo bunting male and femaleamoena, a western counterpart with which it occasionally interbreeds where the species' ranges overlap and the Painted Bunting, P. South of the border the Indigo Bunting meets up with two congeners the Lazuli Bunting, P. and Canada and then fly to the West Indies, Mexico, and as far as Panama for our winter months, with a few stragglers hanging back in south Florida and the Gulf Coast of Texas. Indigo Buntings are Neotropical migrants they spend the breeding season in the eastern and central U.S. Nonetheless, some researchers have found that second-year males occasionally do manage to sneak a copulation with a female, thus getting head starts on propagating their genes. These "scruffy looking" young males may try to establish territories by singing, but a female is more likely attracted to an adult male with bright blues that indicate he's undoubtedly healthy, has been around longer, and is worthy of fathering her offspring. Markings on these younger males are as distinct as fingerprints in humans, and various individuals can be differentiated at the feeder. By the time they return to North America as second-year birds next spring, most males will have developed a calico appearance, with varying degrees of brown, blue, and even grayish feathers scattered through their plumage (below right). Newly fledged Indigo Bunting males look like females, with the addition of very faint streaking on the breast. Parents and offspring also communicate with a ventriloquistic tsick call that doesn't betray their locations to a potential predator. The words in larger type denote a higher pitch. tweet-tweet tweet-tweet tweet-tweet tweet-tweet ![]() The male's unmistakable song consists of four sets of couplets repeated in rapid succession, which to our ear can be symbolized by. Some folks think the boldly blue Indigo Bunting is a show-off, since the male establishes his territory by singing loudly and continuously from a highly visible perch atop the tallest tree he can find, beneath which is invariably a shrub layer in which the female can build a tightly woven nest that may be only a foot or so off the ground. We've tried many times to put into words the various colors on an Indigo Bunting but simply have to settle with saying they're "indescribable." (The species' scientific epithet, Passerina cyanea, refers to "cyan" blue.) In the adult male (below and bottom photo), the head-which bears the same two-tone bill as the female-is usually a darker, richer blue that blends into a slightly more greenish hue on the back and belly the wings and tail are black but edged with the same blue as the body. The male is one of the most brilliant birds in North America and sports shades that are downright breathtaking-indigo being just one of the colors that adorns this nearly all-blue bird. Male Indigo Buntings are vastly different from their mates. Sometimes in older females there is a hint of blue in the tail and wing-especially on the shoulder-but in some ways it's easier to identify the female of this species by remembering "she's the plainest-looking bird I've ever seen." There's no eye ring and only a hint of wing bars, but a close examination of the bird's head finally provides a hint for identification: a two-tone bill in which the top is black, the bottom pinkish-tan. Their bodies are covered by neutral brown feathers, and wings and tail are colored to match. Indeed, female Indigo Buntings (above and below left) at first glance are totally devoid of field marks and have no distinctive shape or size. " Most of the time they don't even have to finish the sentence before we suggest "female Indigo Bunting." That's when we get phone calls that start out with "I've got this little brown bird eating sunfl. ![]() We tell beginners that with a little work and a trusty field guide, even a sparrow, female duck, or winter shorebird can USUALLY be identified, but just when novices start to feel a little confident with their skills, the "most nondescript bird in North America" suddenly shows up at a feeder in spring and confounds them completely. ![]() Of these, the one most folks notice most quickly is color, including field marks such as spots, wing bars, eye rings, and tail spots. Then we suggest the use of three criteria that help in identification of any new bird: color, size, and shape. When beginning birdwatchers seem overwhelmed at trying to identify all the avian visitors to their backyards, we first remind them that everybody-novices and experts alike-learns new species the same way: one bird at a time.
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