Lazuli Bunting

Passerina amoena

Order PASSERIFORMES - Family CARDINALIDAE

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Reproduction
10. Conservation Status
11. Other Names

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

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.

Description

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

• 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.

• Upper bill black, lower mandible light blue.
• Eyes black.
• Legs and feet blackish.

Sex Differences

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

Male

Breeding (Alternate) Plumage: Head deep blue. Upper chest reddish. Lower chest, belly, and under tail white. One large and one narrow white wingbar. Black in front of eyes. Wing feathers dark, edged in blue.
Nonbreeding (Basic) Plumage: Buffy overall. Blue feathers tipped with buff on back and face. Blue, reddish, and white feathers tipped with buff on front.

Female

Grayish brown head, nape, and back. Rump brown tinged with light blue. Bluish tint on shoulders. Two pale tan or whitish wingbars. Faint rust band across breast, blending to lighter brown lower on belly. Wing and tail feathers brown with slightly blue-tinged edges.

Immature

Similar to adult, but first-year male tends to have paler and duller blue feathers with brown or buff tips, especially on head, nape, and back, resulting in variable dull blue-brown, blotchy appearance.

Similar Species

• Female Indigo Bunting very similar, but has whiter throat contrasting with dull brown, slightly streaked breast, and less conspicuous wingbars.
• Blue Grosbeak is entirely dark blue, with two brownish wingbars, a larger body, and a heavier bill.
• Western Bluebird similarly colored, but is plumper and larger-headed, and lacks wingbars.

Sound

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

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from southern British Columbia to southwestern Manitoba, southward to Baja California, northern New Mexico, and western Oklahoma.

Winter Range

Winters in very southern Arizona and western Mexico.

Habitat

Bushy hillsides, riparian habitats, wooded valleys, sagebrush, chaparral, open scrub, recent post-fire habitats, thickets and hedges along agricultural fields, and residential gardens.

Food

Seeds, fruits, and insects. Comes to bird feeders.

Behavior

Foraging

Gleans insects off foliage of trees and shrubs. Hops on ground eating seeds. Often perches on stems of grasses and other plants, removing seeds with bill. Flycatches for insects.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Open cup of coarse grasses, rootlets, strips of bark, and leaves, lined with fine grass, rootlets, and animal hairs. Wrapped in silk. Placed in shrub, close to ground.

Egg Description

Pale greenish blue.

Clutch Size

Usually 3-4 eggs. Range: 1-6.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless with sparse down.

Conservation Status

Common and widespread. Populations appear stable.

Other Names

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

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.