Indigo bunting
Passerina cyanea
Indigo buntings are so preternaturally vivid and beautiful that it seems ridiculous that you can find them all over the place in Michigan in the summer, but you can. This male was part of a noisy community occupying a wooded area in Ann Arbor’s Dominican Meadows Preserve. The privilege of seeing him and his compatriots was well worth the dozen deer fly bites I accumulated on my hike out.
