Passerina amoena
Lazuli Buntings are small, migratory birds. Male Lazuli Buntings have bright, sky blue upperparts and heads, white bellies, and cinnamon colored breasts. Females and juveniles have dull brown upperparts, a light wash of blue on their rumps and tails and two pale wingbars.
While up in the high country of the Wasatch Mountains yesterday morning, I was delighted to photograph this immature Lazuli Bunting with ripe serviceberries.
I have spent time daydreaming about the birds of spring and summer recently because I have a touch of the midwinter blues. It has been a very gray winter.
Yesterday I had fun taking juvenile Lazuli Bunting images as several of these young birds rested and moved around eating grass seeds for breakfast.
I escaped into the coolness of the Wasatch Mountains yesterday morning for a few hours. While I was there I photographed this young Lazuli Bunting.
I shared so many images yesterday that today I am keeping it simple with one image of a Lazuli Bunting male I photographed high in the Wasatch Mountains last week.
Late last week I headed up into the Wasatch Mountains to look for birds in cooler temps and had a great time photographing two bunting species before 8 am.
Today is special day here at On The Wing Photography because it marks my 4000th post AND it is also my Mom's 90th Birthday!
When I photographed this immature Lazuli Bunting three years ago today these images were eclipsed by me finding a rare Baltimore Oriole in the same area of the Wasatch Mountains.
I started my morning off yesterday in the Wasatch Mountains photographing an American Mink family that appeared on the bank of a creek.
Yesterday while I was up in the Wasatch Mountains looking for birds I also noticed some grasses going to seed and took photos of them.
Last week I made two trips out to the West Desert and today I am sharing a medley of recent birds that I found while I was out there.
Over the past week I have had the pleasure of photographing male Lazuli Buntings high in the Wasatch Mountains in several different settings.
When I spotted this sharp-looking, adult male Lazuli Bunting less than 30 feet away from where I sat in a mobile blind on the side of the road I almost jumped with joy.
One year ago today I was up in the Wasatch Mountains photographing pre-migration Lazuli Buntings fattening on the fruits of serviceberries and most of them were either immature or female buntings.
Like the chokecherries I wrote about yesterday it seems that because of our wetter than normal spring the serviceberries are also doing very well so there should be plentiful fruit for the birds to feast on before they migrate this fall.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been able to photograph male, female and immature Lazuli Buntings as they have been gorging on the fruits of Serviceberry trees to fatten up before their migration.
Even though the sun was high I couldn't resist photographing a juvenile Lazuli Bunting that flew in and perched on a Utah Serviceberry branch because to my eye the setting was both enchanting and very appealing.
In the past week I have photographed so many birds in a Wasatch Mountain canyon that I thought I would share a group of them in a photo gallery.
That sighting with my Mom made me hope that I would see more Lazuli Buntings in the canyons, yesterday morning that hope was fulfilled when I spotted a first spring male fly into a blooming Chokecherry tree.
I also felt trepidation about the San Rafael Swell area because nothing within this state that is filled with stones is written in stone except the ancient pictographs and petroglyphs.
Last week I was Thinking Pink so this week I thought I would focus on the shades of blues found in wildflowers, birds, the sky and seas.
I have enjoyed photographing Lazuli Buntings (Passerina amoena) near the San Rafael River at the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area. These images were taken in the spring when the males were high on perches singing to attract females.
Male Lazuli Buntings resemble bluebirds but they are smaller and the blues are a different hue than the Mountain, Eastern and Western Bluebirds.