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Fwd: [BIRDWG05] female Varied Bunting sings?



C'Birders,
A birder friend of mine in Albuquerque, NM, by the name of Celestyn
Brozek, reported a singing Varied Bunting in southern NM on the Bird
West listserv. His posting elicited a rather lenghty response from Kenn
Kaufman which I thought would be of interest to local birders. So I'm
sending it along, since his reply refers to species with which we come
in contact.

Tom Joyce
Brevard, NC

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re:      [BIRDWG05] female Varied Bunting sings?
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 21:58:35 -0700
From: "Kenn Kaufman" <kennk@ix.netcom.com>
To: "Celestyn M. Brozek" <cbrozek@UNM.EDU>,
<BIRDWG05@listserv.arizona.edu>


Celestyn M. Brozek wrote:
>I found a female plumage Varied Bunting in Walnut Canon in Carlsbad Caverns
>National Park in New Mexico (where the birds have been reported to nest).
The
>bird sang like a male, a full, well developed song, repetitively, sitting
at
>the top of bushes, etc.  Is it an immature male?  Or are the females of
>buntings known to sing?
>
Good observation.  As far as I'm aware, singing by females has
not been documented in any of the Passerina buntings (although
it's known for some other members of that family, e.g., Northern
Cardinal).  Your bird was undoubtedly a one-year-old male.

One-year-old male Varied Buntings in summer (that is, males in
first alternate plumage, or SY males in banding terminology)
look mostly female-plumaged.  Some are entirely brown, others
have limited amounts of adult male color, mostly around the
head in my experience (for example, twice I've seen individuals
that were all brown except for powder-blue on the forecrown).

Varied Buntings are thus different from Indigo or Lazuli buntings
(in which one-year-old males usually develop quite a lot of the
adult male color) and more like our final member of the genus
Passerina, Painted Bunting.  One-year-old male Painteds are
mostly female-like, varying from those that are all green to
those that have limited red and blue added.  But in Varied and
Painted buntings (as in Indigo and Lazuli), one-year-old males
can be found singing vigorous songs that are quite similar to
those of adult males.

Kenn Kaufman
Tucson, Arizona
kennk@ix.netcom.com