This is a photograph of a juvenile female Indigo Bunting that I photographed at the LA Arboretum on October 7, 2015. Because this songbird can be found in eastern North America during the summer, and its winter's range extends from extreme SE Texas and Florida through Central America and the West Indies, this bird is considered rare for the Los Angeles area.

Indigo Buntings migrate at night, using the stars for guidance. Researchers demonstrated this process in the late 1960s by studying captive Indigo Buntings in a planetarium and then under the natural night sky. The birds possess an internal clock that enables them to continually adjust their angle of orientation to a star—even as that star moves through the night sky. Indigo Buntings fly about 1,200 miles each way between breeding grounds in eastern North America and wintering areas from southern Florida to northern South America.

Indigo Buntingbuntingfemale buntingjuvenile bunting