Range: Southeastern Canada south to the Gulf Coast states and to central Texas, west to the Great Plains states and the Black Hills of the Dakotas. Along the western edge of the range there is some overlap with the range of Lazuli Bunting, and occasionally these two species hybridize.

 

Habitat: The Indigo Bunting lives and nests in open brushy fields, clearings, hedgerows, roadside thickets, and at the edges of woods. It usually avoids mature forests unless there is a large clearing within it. It spends the winter for the most part, south of the United States in Central America and the Caribbean Islands. The Old Field behind the SoFo Museum is host to at least two pairs of breeding Indigo Buntings in spring and summer. Since the males sing almost continually throughout the day they are usually fairly easy to find.

 

Food: Feeds by foraging in trees, shrubbery and on the ground. The diet consists of a large variety of insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, cicadas, cankerworms, and weevils. Also consumes seed of dandelions, goldenrod, thistle, asters and berries.

 

Nesting and Reproduction: The nest is a well-woven cup of dried grasses, pieces of dead leaves, strips of bark and bits of shed snakeskin. Lined with finer grasses, feathers, rootlets, and sometimes hairs of livestock, it is usually located in the crotch of a small bush or sapling within a thicket. During the months of May through August the female lays 3 to 4 blue-white eggs that hatch after 12 to 13 days of incubation. The young buntings leave the nest 12 to 13 days after hatching. There are usually two broods each year. The Indigo Bunting is a very frequent victim of nest parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird.