Indigo Bunting, Passerina cyanea
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![]() The beautiful male Indigo Bunting is a rarity along the west coast, where the common Passerina bunting is this bird's western cousin, the Lazuli Bunting. I've been lucky enough to photograph the birds above and below on two separate occasions in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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![]() This bird is shown further down the page singing from the top of a nearby tree. |
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![]() I brought my camera and bird lens on a trip to attend a family member's graduation from Washington and Lee at Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia; I slipped away one morning to a park in nearby Buena Vista, and was rewarded with this good view of a male Indigo Bunting. | |
![]() The bird above, also shown singing further down the page, was one of several Indigo Buntings I found in mid-August along the Avon River in Stratford, Ontario, where my wife and I go almost every year for a theater binge. This male sang constantly throughout the morning hours I observed it on two different days. Nearby was the juvenile male seen at the bottom of this page. |
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![]() Above and below, singing males; the song of the Indigo Bunting resembles that of the Lazuli, but is slower paced and sweeter in tone. |
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![]() Juveniles have soft fluffy brown feathering; the small amount of blue feathering on the breast identifies this bird as a juvenile male. Adult and juvenile female Indigo Buntings have no blue feathering at all. |