'T-pop' buntings brighten scene in Piney Woods By Jay V. Huner Brilliant blue, sparrow-sized birds show up at our feeders and in our yards from the middle of April into mid-May every spring. These are Indigo Buntings. Every once in a while, a similar-sized bird that looks like a gaudy Christmas tree ornament appear with its blue cousins. If you've never seen a small bird with an indigo blue head and neck, yellow to golden green back, and red throat, belly and eye ring, you need to look up Painted Bunting in a birding field guide or on the internet. Our buntings are actually classified as finches. They have strong, cone-shaped bills characteristic of seed eaters like the much larger cardinals and grosbeaks. Because they are seed eaters, they are attracted to bird feeders. We see far more Indigo Buntings than Painted Buntings because the Indigo Buntings have higher population densities. We see both species around feeders in the spring because many are migrating through our region to breeding grounds father north. However, both species are common breeding birds in our piney woods region concentrating in dense, brushy areas, especially recently replanted pine clear cuts. Indigo Buntings were very common during the spring 2009 migration. Friends and acquaintances, knowing of my interests in birding, regularly inquired about the beautiful small birds that they were seeing across central Louisiana. If they had seen the Indigo Buntings before, they had never seen them in such high numbers. So some wanted to know what the birds were and others wanted to know why they were so numerous compared to other springs. So, why were they everywhere? Well, there weren't any more Indigo Buntings this season than other seasons. However, weather conditions were such that, as the birds migrated north across the Gulf of Mexico, they were directed by air masses into our region. This is where they stopped to refuel before moving onward or seeking breeding sites in the immediate area. We notice male Indigo and Painted Buntings because they are such strikingly beautiful birds. Females and fledglings, however, are much plainer, and even the male Indigo Bunting becomes drab in the fall. Fall male, female and fledgling Indigo Buntings are basically brown with streaking on their breasts. There is a hint of blue on the males. Some males have not completed their molt before spring migration and have a mixture of intense blue feathers interspersed with brown feathers. Female Painted Buntings are bright green above and yellowish green below. Fledglings are much drabber. Young males look much like females. My friends at my hunting club near Sorrento, Louisiana, a bit south of the piney woods in the Florida parishes, call buntings "t-pops". The French word for little is "petite" and it is reduced to "tee" or "t" in Cajun slang. According to the late Professor George Lowery of LSU, the proper Cajun name for the two buntings are "pape bleu," or blue pop, for the Indigo Bunting and "pape rouge," or red pop, for the Painted Bunting. Male "t-pops" adapt readily to confinement in cages because they are seed eaters and have similar bubbly, "sweet" songs. Although it is strictly illegal to capture and confine buntings and most of our native birds, most of the fellows at the club have tales of keeping "t-pops" in bird cages as children! Bird conservationists fight are constantly interacting with Latin American governments to encourage them to enforce international migratory bird laws to keep their citizens from catching buntings for local sales as pets. Check out "t-pops" on the internet if you've never seen one or both species before. Be sure to check their songs. Once you are sure you know what they look and sound like, go out to a nearby thick replanted pine cutover area early in the morning. Listen for the song and movement. If there are utility wires around, watch them as males of both species will often sing from wires early in the day. But, before you decide you've finally found a singing male Indigo Bunting, check out the bird and make sure it doesn't have chestnut shoulder patches. If it does, you are watching a Blue Grosbeak but that's another story! Jay V. Huner, Louisiana Ecrevisse, 428 Hickory Hill Drive, Boyce, Louisiana 71409 USA 318 793-5529 / piku@classicnet.net |