![]() ![]() The indigo bunting communicates through vocalizations and visual cues. Įcology and behavior Edit Vocalizations Edit However, not much emphasis should be placed on these values since the pool of individuals is small, where any individual can affect the weighted average. The oldest recorded bunting was at least 13 years and 3 months old. Using the calculated annual rate of six-year-old birds obtained (2/25 = 0.08), an annual rate of 0.656 was calculated, 12% higher than the annual rate of 0.585, leading to the 1 out of 25 statistic. Using his own methods (Blake 1967, p. 5) and a pool of 25 indigo buntings captured and observed, it was determined that approximately two out of twenty-five indigo buntings should live up to six years. Blake from his banding experiments in Hillsborough, NC, the Indigo Bunting has a weighted annual survival rate of 0.585. Īs indicated by data collected from Charles H. When comparing males to females that both have brown molt, increased wing length and weight typically indicate a bunting is a male. First year birds also tend to have a fleshy, yellow gape in the corner of the mouth, apparent in all months except October and November. Adults instead have a double layer skull, which gives more resistance when applying pressure. Juvenile skulls have a slightly pinkish color that gives under pressure due to its singular layer. įirst years and adult males are distinguishable through close observations of the skull and its degree of ossification. In the adult female, the beak is light brown tinged with blue, and in the adult male the upper half is brownish-black while the lower is light blue. The immature bird resembles the female in coloring, although a male may have hints of blue on the tail and shoulders and have darker streaks on the underside. It has indistinct wing bars and is faintly streaked with darker markings underneath. The adult female is brown on the upperparts and lighter brown on the underparts. In fall and winter plumage, the male has brown edges to the blue body and head feathers, which overlap to make the bird appear mostly brown. The wings and tail are black with cerulean blue edges. During the breeding season, the adult male appears mostly a vibrant cerulean blue. The indigo bunting is a smallish songbird, around the size of a small sparrow. ĭescription Edit Juvenile male indigo bunting at Smith Oaks Sanctuary, High Island, Texas Evolving to reduce size may have allowed buntings to exploit grass seeds as a food source. This timing, which is consistent with fossil evidence, coincides with a late- Miocene cooling, which caused the evolution of a variety of western grassland habitats. This genetic study shows these species diverged between 4.1 and 7.3 million years ago. The indigo bunting is the sister of two sister groups, a "blue" ( lazuli bunting and blue grosbeak) and a "painted" ( rose-bellied bunting, orange-breasted bunting, varied bunting, and painted bunting) clade. However, according to sequencing of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene of members of the genus Passerina, it was determined that the indigo bunting and lazuli bunting are not, in fact, sister taxa. They were declared to form a superspecies by the American Ornithologists' Union in 1983. The indigo bunting is a close relative of the lazuli bunting and interbreeds with the species where their ranges overlap, in the Great Plains. The current genus name, Passerina, is derived from the Latin term passer for true sparrows and similar small birds, while the species name, cyanea, is Latin for cyan, the color of the male's breeding plumage. It was originally described as Tanagra cyanea by Linnaeus in his 18th-century work, Systema Naturae. The indigo bunting is included in the family Cardinalidae, which is made up of passerine birds found in North and South America, and is one of seven birds in the genus Passerina. Taxonomy Edit Illustration of male and female indigo bunting between 19. ![]()
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