A New Bird to Our Deck

Earlier this week, my husband commented that there was an unusual bird on our deck. I looked down from my office window to where I had poured seed into a bowl from the feeder (the seed had gotten a little wet and sprouted). Sure enough – it was a bird different from any I’d seen at our seed on the deck.

I went downstairs for a better angle. It was gobbling seed.

It had a lot of blue and then some browner areas. The beak was not chunky enough to be a blue grosbeak (like we’d seen at Chincoteague about this time of year a few years ago). The markings on the side were not the distinctive cinnamon like the grosbeak either.

I continued taking pictures as long as the bird continued eating.

After the bird flew way, I got out my tablet and used the Merlin App and decided it was an

Indigo Bunting!

It has appeared at least once more on our deck (probably more since we haven’t been around as much the past few days). Hopefully it will nest nearby and I’ll learn to recognize the female – which is brown with faint streaking on the breast…whitish throat (i.e. a small and hard to distinguish bird).