Lazuli Bunting
Passerina amoena

Conservation status | Widespread and common, numbers apparently stable. |
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Family | Cardinals, Grosbeaks and Buntings |
Habitat | Open brush, streamside shrubs. Breeds in brushy areas with open grassy ground nearby, such as patches of scrub oak, chaparral, streamside thickets, sometimes in areas of sagebrush or pinyon-juniper woods. In migration and winter, occurs in weedy fields, open woods, brushy places. |
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Feeding Behavior
Forages mainly on the ground, also up in low growth. May bend grass stalks down to the ground to eat the seeds from them. Sometimes takes insects from foliage while hovering.
Eggs
3-5, usually 4. Pale bluish white, unmarked. Incubation is by female only, about 12 days. Young: At some nests, nestlings are fed entirely by the female, although at others the male helps to feed them. Young leave the nest about 10-12 days after hatching. Male may feed the young more after they fledge, while female begins second nesting attempt. 2 broods per year, perhaps sometimes 3.
Young
At some nests, nestlings are fed entirely by the female, although at others the male helps to feed them. Young leave the nest about 10-12 days after hatching. Male may feed the young more after they fledge, while female begins second nesting attempt. 2 broods per year, perhaps sometimes 3.
Diet
Mostly seeds and insects. More than half of summer diet may be insects, including grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles, true bugs, wild bees, ants, and others. Also eats many seeds, mainly those of grasses, also weed seeds and waste grain; seeds may make up most of winter diet. Young are fed mostly insects.
Nesting
Male sings to defend nesting territory. Where Lazuli and Indigo buntings overlap in range, they will defend territories against each other. Nest: Placed in shrubs, vines, or low trees, usually 2-4' above the ground, firmly attached to vertical stems or to forked branch. Nest (built by female) is an open cup of grass, weeds, leaves, lined with fine grass and sometimes animal hair.
Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
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Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
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Migration
Fall migration begins early, with many birds on the move by late July. Migrants stray east of breeding range on Great Plains, especially in spring.

- All Seasons - Common
- All Seasons - Uncommon
- Breeding - Common
- Breeding - Uncommon
- Winter - Common
- Winter - Uncommon
- Migration - Common
- Migration - Uncommon
See a fully interactive migration map for this species on the Bird Migration Explorer.
Learn moreSongs and Calls
A high-pitched, excited series of warbled phrases, the first notes usually repeated, descending the scale and ascending again at the end; similar to song of Indigo Bunting, but phrases less distinct and only the first phrases repeated.Learn more about this sound collection.
How Climate Change Will Reshape the Range of the Lazuli Bunting
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
Climate threats facing the Lazuli Bunting
Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.