The Indigo Bunting is a small, sparrow-sized songbird easily recognized by the male’s vibrant, all-blue plumage during the warmer months. These neotropical migrants undertake long-distance journeys, traveling at night and using the stars to navigate between their breeding and wintering grounds. Their summer range covers eastern North America, stretching from southern Canada down to northern Florida and extending west toward the Great Plains.
Preferred Nesting Environments
Indigo Buntings seek environments that offer a mix of open space and dense cover for nesting. They strongly prefer “edge” habitats, which are transitional areas where different ecosystems meet, such as bushy borders where a forest meets an open field or a clearing.
These birds commonly select overgrown pastures, shrubby fields, and areas of second-growth woodland for their territories. They deliberately avoid the interior of deep, mature forests, favoring the abundant shrubbery found along the periphery and in clearings. Utility rights-of-way, such as those beneath powerlines or alongside railroads, are also frequently used due to their consistent maintenance creating low, dense thickets. In the western portion of their range, they are often found nesting in thickets that border streams and riparian areas.
Constructing and Placing the Nest
The female Indigo Bunting is responsible for selecting the final nest site and constructing the tightly woven, open-cup structure entirely on her own. The outer layer is composed of coarser materials like dead leaves, weed stems, and strips of bark. She often incorporates strands of spider silk to bind these components together, adding strength and flexibility.
The interior is then lined with much finer materials, such as slender grasses, thin rootlets, or animal hair, creating a soft bed for the eggs. Nests are typically situated low to the ground, usually less than three feet (one meter) high. The specific placement is often in the supporting crotch of a small shrub, a young sapling, or a tangle of dense vines and briars.
The Indigo Bunting Breeding Season
The nesting cycle generally begins with the arrival of the birds in late spring and continues throughout the summer months. The breeding season runs from May through September, with the highest activity concentrated between June and August. The female lays a clutch of eggs, which typically numbers three or four, though occasionally only one or two.
Incubation is performed solely by the female and lasts 11 to 14 days. The male provides protection for the territory but does not assist with sitting on the eggs. After hatching, the altricial chicks remain in the nest for eight to fourteen days before fledging. Indigo Buntings frequently raise two broods within a single season, with some females even attempting a third.