Appropriately named after the brilliant gemstone Lapis Lazuli, the Lazuli Bunting is a persistent singer throughout it's range during breeding season.
Each male has its own distinct song, usually "crystalized" around two years of age. During their first hatching season, young males may babble experimental notes, but they do not learn from their fathers. Instead, they copy and interpret snippets of song from other adult males beginning their second season, developing their own unique phenology. This crystalizes into a single song unique to that male but part of a "song neighborhood" with other males hatched and fledged in the same breeding territory.
Conspicuously perched and showing off their brilliant blue colors, males sing dawn through dusk.
Recorded in Sinlahekin Valley on Summer Solstice 2024, this is but one male of many that filled the morning air with beauty. Listen to another recorded nearby here: https://on.soundcloud.com/UjtQYDknPNdseKrx5
More about the Lazuli Bunting on eBird: https://ebird.org/species/lazbun
image credit: "923 - LAZULI BUNTING (4-27-11) paton's, patagonia, az (1)" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=openverse.
