This morning outside my kitchen window were 3 bright blue spots! It took a moment to realize that the spots were Indigo Buntings! They are one of my favorite spring birds because of their size and color!
You notice first their beautiful bright color. The color is such an important identifier, that their color is in their name - Indigo. The funny thing about birds that are blue is that they aren’t actually blue at all. Their feathers are black and are missing blue pigments, but the light refracts and reflects from microscopic shapes in their feathers causing your eyes to see jewel tones of blue.
There are many interesting facts about the Indigo Bunting. It is a passerine bird which means that the toes on its feet are created to grip a branch so that it can perch on a limb.
The Indigo Bunting belongs to the Cardinal family of birds, but are much smaller than the Cardinal. They are 41⁄2” to 51⁄2” long and they weigh only about 1⁄2 an ounce! I often have trouble getting a good photo of them because of their size. I must be far enough away to not frighten them, but close enough that I can see them clearly through my lens. When they are cropped too much in a photo, they become pixelated.
Indigos are migratory birds. That is why we are seeing them now in April. They have flown South (either Florida or South America) for the winter and now they are coming back headed North. They will be flying to Canada for the summer.
They enjoy living in brushy, woody forest areas. I guess that’s one of the reasons that they are attracted to my yard. Their diet is mostly insects so that’s always a great reason for them to come to my yard. I can supply them with an endless supply of bugs! But, they also enjoy seeds and spiders.
The sex of the Indigo Bunting is easily recognized during the summer mating season. The males are the ones that are Indigo, but females are brown. During the winter, male Indigos are not blue in color. They turn brown like the females and so it’s not as easy to determine the sex in those months.
Normally Indigos travel in flocks, but during the spring when they are mating they will travel in pairs. Even though they are paired up, I often see many of them scattered in my backyard as they are checking out my yard for food. They don’t stay long in Senatobia because they are actually on a trip back to Canada, so any photos of them must be captured within the couple of weeks that they visit us.
The male sings in the treetops to attract a female to mate with. The female builds a cup shaped nest. They have 2 broods per year with 3-4 eggs each time. Their eggs are a solid pale blue. The female sits on the nest and eggs hatch in 12 to 13 days. They generally fledge within 10-11 days.
The female bunting is similar in appearance to female finches. I have probably had lots of female Indigos in my yard and thought them to be finches. As I look at the pictures of the females in my guidebook I see that their eyes, beaks and heads look larger than those of the finch. I will probably revisit my past spring photographs and will discover they weren’t finches at all, but buntings.
Indigo Buntings have lost some numbers, but are still listed as “least concern” because they have a strong population of birds with 28-30 million indigo buntings in the world according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Springtime is a wonderful time to “Look at the birds of the air...” Matthew 6:26. Take a few moments to look outside and see if you have Indigos visiting you too!
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