We're jumping into the weekend! (via @exploreorg)

Found in most of the United States and parts of Central America

Have you seen a “blue canary” in a field near you? Or maybe you’ve heard their cheerful call?

Male Indigo Buntings look like a bright bit of sky. These foragers enjoy flitting through weedy fields and brushy areas in the spring and summer months, and are also happy to visit your backyard feeder if it’s full of small seeds like thistle or nyjer and mealworms. Female Indigo Buntings are brown and are often hidden away in thickets tending to their nests and young.

Indigo Buntings are born astronomers—they migrate at night and follow the stars for guidance. (How’s that for Taurus season?)

Fun fact: The Indo Bunting, like all blue birds, actually lacks blue pigment. Its blue appearance is caused by light refractions from “microscopic structures in the feathers”—the same phenomenon that makes the sky look blue to us.

Give a Hoot

Birding bits you should know about this week

🎉 A very big deal
The Biggest Week in American Birding
This in-person birding festival starts today in Ohio, the “Warbler capital of the world.” The schedule is packed with events and guided trips, like “Birding 101” and “Intro to Warbler ID.”

🌼 Just in time for spring 
Hudson Valley segment of statewide birding trail opens
This new birding trail stretches through six New York counties, running through bird conservation areas like Hudson Highlands State Park, the marshes at Tivoli Bays Wildlife Management Area, and many others.

➕ By the numbers
Wayward Steller’s sea eagle skews the stats for eBird followers
A Stellar’s sea eagle wandered far from its normal home and attracted thousands of birders to Maine. The author breaks down the fun and interesting math of just how many people may have seen the bird, and how it affected sightings on eBird.

🚀 Adventure time
Maine’s most prolific birders share their tales of adventure
There’s always that “spark bird” that lights a birder’s future obsession. Some of Maine’s most devoted birders share their stories or rare sightings and how they prioritize birding in their lives.

⭐Starry night
Lights out, Texas!
This education initiative aims to protect the billions of migratory birds that fly over Texas annually—and they have great tips for things you can do to help protect birds everywhere, like turning off all your lights from 11pm to 6am.

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Your Shot

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via @marktakesphoto on Twitter

The catbird piped in the hazel,

And the harsh kingfisher screamed,

And the crane, in amber and oozy swirls,

Dozed in the reeds and dreamed.

– “A Vision of Summer” by James Whitcomb Riley

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Flying Colors makes premium organic wild bird food, offering ethically sourced, toxin-free seeds and nuts of the highest quality to nourish wild birds of all types and inspire birders of all ages. Each specialty blend and single origin creation is rigorously sourced & researched, and every jar is produced with love & packaged by hand in small batches in New York's Hudson Valley and tested in our own backyards.