BLUE BIRDS SEEN IN NORTH AMERICA

Lazuli Bunting

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Passerina Amoena

Lazuli Bunting

Males are easily recognized by its bright blue head and back (lighter than the closely related Indigo Bunting), its conspicuous white wingbars, and its light rusty breast and white belly.

Females are brown, grayer above and warmer underneath, underparts are buffy-white with darker buff on breast and pale buffy gray on the belly.

Juveniles are brown. Within the first year, some blue or orange feathers appear in young males.

BILL: short, cone-shaped, black upper mandible and pale bluish-gray lower mandible.

SIZE: measures about 5 - 5.5 inches in length, with a wingspan of 7.87 - 9.05 inches.

WEIGHT: males weigh about 13 - 20 grams and females weigh about 13 - 17 grams.

COLOR: blue, white, rust, gray, brown, and buff.

Eat mostly seeds and insects.

Dry, brushy ravines and slopes, wooded valleys and also cleared areas, open scrub, and weedy pastures.

Southern Canada to northern Texas, Central New Mexico and Arizona, and Southern California. On the Pacific coast, their breeding range extends south to extreme northwestern Baja California. They migrate to southeastern Arizona and Mexico.

SONG: The song is a high, rapid, strident warble, similar to that of the Indigo Bunting but longer and with less repetition.

NEST: The female selects the nest-site and builds a cup-shaped structure, made of rootlets, grasses and bark strips, with the outer part covered with spider web or caterpillar silk and lined with soft grasses and animal hair.

EGGS: 3 - 4 pale blue to faint greenish-blue or white eggs.

INCUBATION: 11 - 14 days, female.

NESTLING PHASE: 9 - 11 days.

They spend much of their time low in the understory, hopping on the ground, perching on shrubs, or making short flights between shrubs with rapid wingbeats. They forage alone or in pairs, and in small groups outside the breeding season.