A very small beautiful bird covered in a suit of electric turquoise blue and green, combined with iridescent yellow and burnished orange.
Meet the Orange-breasted bunting
The orange-breasted bunting (Passerina leclancherii), is a species of passerine bird in the Cardinalidae family. Around 5 inches in length the adult male has a pale green crown, turquoise blue nape, and upperparts, which are often tinged with green, and a turquoise tail. The lores, eye-ring, and belly are canary yellow, deepening to golden-orange on the breast.
The adult female has grey-green upperparts and yellow underparts.
Both males and females have yellow eye-rings.
Photo Courtesy of Aedrake09 / CC BY-SA 3.0
This bird can be found in, and is endemic to, the Pacific slope of Mexico.
These birds like to inhabit tropical dry forested areas and arid scrubland, thorny thickets, bushy deciduous woodland, clearings, and the edges of wooded edges, up to 3,000 feet in altitude. It is, however, more abundant in secondary growth than in undisturbed forests.
The birds like to feed on seeds in the winter and insects in the summer, and have correspondingly smaller bills than most cardinalids.
Photo Courtesy of Aedrake09 / CC BY-SA 3.0
The Orange-breasted bunting breeding season runs from May through to June. During this time a cup-shaped nest is built using rootlets, grasses, and dry leaves. It is built in a low bush or thick scrub. A clutch of three to four bluish-white eggs is laid within.
This species has a very large range so, therefore, does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion.
Watch and listen to this bird right here in the video below: