Blue Bunting - BirdForum Opus

Cyanocompsa parellina

Photo by Al_in_Virginia
Quinton, Virginia

Identification

14cm (5.5 ins)
Male

• Dark blue body
• Bright blue supercilium, forecrown, malar region, rump and lesser wing coverts
• Very dark tail.
  

Female

• Warm brown, slightly paler below

Similar Species

Blue-black Grosbeak is bigger, with a much bigger bill; Blue-black Grassquit is smaller, blacker and has a smaller, sharper bill; Indigo Bunting, which does winter in Mexico, is a much lighter, brighter blue.

Photo by Peter R. Bono
Central Vallarta Road, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Jan. 2009

Distribution

Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. A rare visitor to the coast and the Rio Grande Valley in extreme south Texas.

Taxonomy

Subspecies^[1]

There are 3 subspecies:

• C. p. beneplacita: (Bangs, 1915)

• North-eastern Mexico (southern Tamaulipas, eastern San Luis Potosí and southern Nuevo León)

• C. p. parellina: (Bonaparte, 1850)

• Eastern Mexico (Veracruz and eastern Puebla) to Nicaragua

• C. p. indigotica: (Ridgway, 1887)

• Pacific slope of Mexico (Sinaloa to Isthmus of Tehuántepec)

A fourth subspecies lucida (Sutton & Burleigh, 1939), is not recognised by all authorities².

Habitat

Roadsides, brushy fields, undergrowth of riversides, thickets and scrubby woods.

Behaviour

Diet

Forages for seeds and insects on the ground and in the bushes and undergrowth.

Breeding

Nest of grassy material, lined with finer fibers, built in a bush or low down in a small tree. Two white to light blue eggs are laid and incubated by the female, for 11-13 days.

Vocalisation

Call is a metallic chink.
Song is a varied, plaintive trilling of see-you, see-you, see yee-suee-se-se-see, starts with one to two notes, followed by a trill, then fades away.

References

1. Clements, JF. 2009. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2009. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.
2. Avibase
3. ITIS
4. Wikipedia

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Blue Bunting. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 12 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Blue_Bunting

External Links

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