Indigo Bunting
While Painted Buntings are high on most birders lists of most beautiful birds in North America, breeding plumage male Indigo Buntings (top) are spectacular birds, even if in the process of auditioning to serve as the mascot for “Angry Birds.” Their deep blue coloration is unique among birds as most other small blue species, such as Blue Grosbeaks, Lazuli and Varied Buntings, and Mountain Bluebirds all have other colors mixed in with the blue plumage.
Interestingly, range maps differ on the distribution of Indigo Buntings. For instance, Cornell’s All About Birds shows Indigo Buntings breeding throughout Florida, including the Treasure Coast, and well into the southwest, even to California. Their range maps also have Indigo Buntings barely reaching Canada and wintering strictly in the West Indies and Central America.
The IBird Pro range maps do not show Indigo Buntings reaching the U.S. southwest, but does correctly have them wintering in Florida, particularly along the Treasure Coast. IBird Pro also shows Indigo Buntings just north of the Treasure Coast year-round. In any event, five of the seven photos depicted here were taken on the Treasure Coast in the winter.
While the male Indigo Bunting is a spectacular blue, the female and young are a quite drab brown (photo 2). In the winter on the Treasure Coast, male Indigo Buntings can vary from mostly brown with the slight beginning of some blue (photo 3), to approximately half brown and half blue (photo 4), to mostly blue with only some remaining brown (photo 5), to almost all blue with only spots of brown remaining (photo 6), to completely blue (photo 7), but not the deep rich blue of the ultimate breeding plumage as seen in the lead photo above.
Indigo Buntings are popular feeder birds, enjoying nyger thistle feed, mealworms and white millet. They also eat any number of berries and insects, including Browntail Moth Caterpillars which are covered with noxious hairs that cause nasty rashes and respiratory problems for people but are no problem whatsoever for hungry Indigo Buntings. They nest in fields, woods edges and along roadsides. The female builds the nest while the male may watch but not join in the construction. No comment.
Last month this column compared sparrows to common folk, as opposed to movie stars like Painted Buntings. Breeding plumage male Indigo Buntings are B list movie stars, not quite as flashy as their Painted cousins, but certainly more colorful than sparrows. As Snowbirds, Jewel and I enjoy Indigo Buntings in Florida in the winter and at our Pennsylvania feeders in the summer.
While we enjoy the wonderful benefits of both locations year-round, Indigo Buntings just add to that enjoyment. Kind of like having your cake and eating it too. As I sometimes say, “Wearing shorts and T-shirts year-round.” Now do you have a favorite cliché?
For more information about Indigo Buntings, see: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Indigo_Bunting/id#
