Indigo Bunting

PASSERIN INDIGO

Passerina cyanea (Linnaeus)

 

Fairly common breeder in the south.

 

Rich, dark blue overall, with blackish wings and tail, a breeding male Indigo Bunting is unlike any other regular Manitoba bird. Smaller and darker than a bluebird, it often appears as a blackish silhouette, perched conspicuously while singing on a high, dead branch. The song is a loud series of slurred notes, uttered in pairs, some sweet in tone and others slightly raspy. The plain brown female could easily be mistaken for a small sparrow. Molting and immature males have varying amounts of blue and brown, often in irregular patches.

 

Though fairly common in some parts of southern Manitoba, this species is not a frequent feeder user here; hence it is less well-known than other colourful finch-like birds. It is most often found in lightly wooded, sandy habitat, including the disturbed areas around gravel pits. It also occurs along rights-of-way at the southern fringe of the boreal forest, sometimes in relatively wet areas, but is rarely found deeper in the forest.

 

Indigo Buntings are most numerous in and near the Agassiz and Sandilands Provincial Forests in southeastern Manitoba, and locally northward to the Winnipeg River and the southern end of Lake Winnipeg. Farther west, they occur locally along the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, including some suburban areas of Winnipeg, the Spruce Woods and Brandon Hills areas, and northward to Riding Mountain National Park. Individuals have turned up much farther north, with two May sightings at Island Lake and two late-June records near the north shore of Lake Winnipegosis. A male was found dead at La Pérouse Bay in mid-June 1990, and another visited John and Marlene Bilenduke’s feeder near Churchill from 1 to 3 July 1997.

 

Among the last spring migrants to return to Manitoba, Indigo Buntings are rarely seen before the fourth week of May, and do not reach full strength until early June. An exceptionally early bird turned up at a Gimli feeder on 28 April 2001. Even in June, birders rarely record more than about six Indigo Buntings in a day. The species has been found on 20 Breeding Bird Survey routes in Manitoba, northward to Muddy Bay in the west and Bissett in the east. Even in the southeast, totals rarely exceed three birds, with a maximum of seven at Whitemouth Lake in 1997.

 

Nests are usually built near the ground in a shrubby thicket. Eight are documented in the Nest Record file, with egg dates from 11 June to 8 August, and recent fledglings as early as 10 July. The species remains fairly conspicuous until about mid-August, but is rarely seen in September, the latest being found near Whitemouth on 24 September 1977.

 

Thompson and his correspondents did not find this species in Manitoba until 1893, when a specimen was taken in Winnipeg by William R. Hine.^1,2 Admittedly, the region east of the Red River received little coverage by 19th-century ornithologists, but the species is probably a relative newcomer to the province, or at least is more widespread than formerly. This makes sense, given the Indigo Bunting’s preference for disturbed habitats.

 

¹ Thompson 1890; ² Seton 1908.

 

G.E. Holland, C.E. Curtis, P. Taylor