The most salient feature of this bird, the male’s brilliant blue feathers, results from the diffraction of light through the feathers, not from pigmentation. “It is surprising how abundant the bird can be without attracting the attention of the average resident,” said Barrows in 1912. This is largely true today. Females, which are primarily a grayish brown, tend to remain concealed in dense brush and so are seldom seen. The male’s small size, its finch-like song, and its tendency to sing from the tops of trees renders it not easily definitively identifiable by ear, and not clearly visible except with binoculars.

The second salient feature about this bird is that it is a creature of edges. Indigo Buntings are birds of deciduous forest edges and clearings. They are also found in open woodland, shrublands, and on the edges of orchards, old fields where farming has been abandoned, along cultivated weedy fields, railway and power line rights of way, and swamps. According to the Breeding Bird Atlas, buntings are seldom present in heavily wooded areas, urban areas, and in intensely cultivated lands.

Indigo Buntings return to Michigan in May. This year’s migratory count in Grand Traverse County on May 13 tallied just one Indigo Bunting. By mid June it is abundant along many edges throughout the region. Although males return about 10 days before females, the female selects the nest site. Buntings construct well-woven nests of a wide variety of materials from snakeskin to bark to Spanish moss. They are always well concealed and usually within a meter of the ground.

Research indicates that male Indigo Buntings often create territories within hearing of other males--thereby establishing bunting “neighborhoods”.

Courtship involves mating flights as well as a ground dance in which the male spreads his wings and dances around the female. Males tend to spend most of their time singing and guarding the territory. Females tend to the nest building and rearing of the young.

Nesting season extends from mid-May through August and sometimes into September. Buntings are a common cowbird host. However they have been known to bury cowbird eggs by building a new nest floor over the cowbird egg.

Males quit singing in August and leave quietly in September. At this time of year, buntings gather in flocks. Post-breeding molts result in males sporting patches of brown on that once unmarred blue.

~bob c.