Scarlet Tanager

For Throwback Thursday, here's a good follow up to yesterday's Northern Cardinal; it's a male Scarlet Tanager, our 2nd reddest bird [1]. Although our tanagers are related to our cardinals, grosbeaks, and buntings, don't expect all the family members to be red since most are not (and some are blue) [2].

I mentioned in my Northern Cardinal post that the males are bright red all year round; not so for the Scarlet Tanager. These birds only look shockingly colorful during breeding season, wearing a dull yellow plumage the rest of the year.

Though my understanding is that there are quite a few Scarlet Tanagers around here, they're kind of hard to spot since they favor treetops for their foraging and socializing. That's why the below are my best pictures of this bird.

May 15, 2016 at Washington Valley Park
Photo 5330987, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

May 15, 2016 at Washington Valley Park
Photo 5330990, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] At least the Scarlet Tanager is our 2nd reddest bird right now, though with climate change it's at least possible the Summer Tanager expands its range into my region.

[2] Confusingly our tanagers are in the cardinal family, not the tanager family. This is because when the species were named it was believed that true tanagers were the closest relatives of our local "tanagers". Since then, ornithologists have figured out that the birds we call tanagers are more closely related to cardinals, changing their family but retaining the "tanager" in their common names.

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