The Indigo Bunting is a forest-edge bird, where the demure brown female nests in raspberry thickets, while the brilliant blue male sings, silhouetted against the blue summer skies.

In the days of my youth I associated them with unpaved roads along the Niagara Cuesta.

I have sometimes found them more common in midsummer than during the first influx of migrants in late May, and wondered if some nest farther south and come north after the first brood, to nest in Ontario for the second brood, or perhaps just come north as the herons do after nesting in the south.

In winter most of them go south to Mexico or Central America; some to the West Indies.

These are goldfinch-sized birds, not to be confused with the much larger Blue Grosbeaks which are about the size of cowbirds.

Adult males are rich blue with sometimes some brown in wings and tail, but lacking the rusty wing bars of Blue Grosbeaks.

Females are inconspicuous dull brown little birds.

Dr. J. Murray Speirs