Indigo Bunting

About the Indigo Bunting

The male Indigo Bunting is the bluest bird in the East - a small, sparrow-sized finch that glows deep sapphire in sun, with a slightly darker face and silvery-blue bill. In shade the same bird can look nearly black; the color is structural, not pigment, so it lives and dies by the light. Females and fall birds are plain warm brown with faint streaking.

Males sing tirelessly from exposed perches through the hottest part of the summer day - a bright, paired-note song learned from neighboring males - and defend brushy territories along field edges and roadsides. Indigo Buntings migrate at night, navigating by the stars, and were the subject of the classic planetarium experiments that proved birds can do so.

In Texas the Indigo Bunting is a summer breeder across the eastern half of the state, including brushy edges and greenways around Austin, and a common migrant statewide in April-May and September-October, sometimes in flocks with its cousin the Painted Bunting.