Indigo Bunting
Passerina cyanea

The Indigo Bunting belongs to the Cardinalidae family, like the Northern Cardinal and the Rose-breasted Grosbeak: it’s a colourful family! The male bunting has spectacular blue plumage, while the female is basically brown. However, outside the breeding season, the male Indigo Bunting is rather drab in colour.

The best opportunity to see an Indigo Bunting is undoubtedly when it perches in the tops of the tallest trees to sing; its shrill, strident song helps to locate it.

This bird nests in deciduous and mixed forests. It can be found in forest edges, clearings, power line rights-of-way, near marshes and riverbanks and beside roads.

The bunting usually hunts insects close to the ground or on the lower branches of a tree. Its diet also includes fruit and seeds.

After spending the winter in South America, the Bahamas or the West Indies, the Indigo Bunting returns to southern Québec to raise its young. It builds its nest, made of twigs, grass, leaves and scraps of bark, in shrubs or bushes. The male is in charge of defending the territory but he is not very involved in nesting. The female is responsible for building the nest, incubating the eggs and providing most of the food for the young. The clutch usually consists of three or four eggs, which the female incubates alone for 12 or 13 days. The young leave the nest after 9 to 12 days, but they still need to be fed for about a month after that.