Lazuli Bunting

Lazuli Bunting, adult male; Kern Co., CA; June

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Lazuli Bunting, adult female; Kern Co., CA; June

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Conservation Status
4. Other Names
5. Cool Facts
6. Full detailed species account

A beautifully colored bird, the Lazuli Bunting is common in shrubby areas throughout the American West.

Description

• Small songbird.
• Short, thick bill.
• Two wingbars.
• Breeding male with blue head and back, red chest, and white belly.
• Female and nonbreeding male dull brown.

• Size: 13-15 cm (5-6 in)
• Wingspan: 22 cm (9 in)
• Weight: 13-18 g (0.46-0.64 ounces)

Sex Differences

Male is colored in blue, red, and white; female is brown.

Sound

Song a high, strident series of warbled phrases. Call a dry chip.

Conservation Status

Common and widespread. Populations appear stable.

Other Names

Bruant azuré (French)
Gorrión cabeziazul, Gorrión de cabeza azul (Spanish)

Cool Facts

• Each male Lazuli Bunting two years of age and older sings only one song, composed of a series of different syllables, and unique to that individual. Yearling males generally arrive on the breeding grounds without a song of their own. Shortly after arriving, a young male develops its own song, which can be a novel rearrangement of syllables, combinations of song fragments of several males, or a copy of the song of one particular older male.
• Song copying by young male Lazuli Buntings can produce song neighborhoods, in which songs of neighboring males are similar.

• The Lazuli Bunting has a unique pattern of molt and migration. Individuals begin their Prebasic molt during late summer on the breeding grounds, then interrupt this molt and migrate to one of two known molting ?hotspots"? southern Arizona and New Mexico and northern Sonora, or the southern tip of Baja California ? where they finish molting before continuing their migration to wintering grounds in western Mexico.

Sources used to construct this page:

Greene, E., V. R. Muehter, and W. Davison. 1996. Lazuli Bunting (Passerina amoena). In The Birds of North America, No. 232 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.