Lazuli Bunting

Adult breeding males are striking, featuring brilliant blue feathers on their heads and backs, a vibrant pumpkin-orange breast, and a bright white belly, with a distinctive white shoulder patch. In contrast, females are more subtly colored with warm grayish-brown plumage and a pale cinnamon breast, while juveniles and non-breeding males have a pumpkin-colored breast with a mottled blue and tan head and back. Lazuli Buntings are polygynandrous, meaning both males and females may mate with multiple partners during the breeding season. Males attract mates with their songs, and once paired, they produce 1 to 2 broods per year, each containing 3 to 4 pale blue or faint greenish-blue eggs. Females incubate the eggs for about 12 days, and the chicks leave the nest 10 to 12 days after hatching.

Their diet consists of insects such as caterpillars, spiders, and beetles, as well as berries and seeds from plants like serviceberry and chickweed. Lazuli Buntings often visit bird feeders, especially those offering white proso millet. Older males sing a unique song, and after the breeding season, they begin molting before migrating. They pause the molt during migration and resume it in southwestern regions before continuing to their wintering grounds in western Mexico.