Scarlet Tanager, Piranga olivacea

Note: this post, while published, is a work in progress, as are all posts in this series, My Photo Life List. My goal is to photograph every species of bird that is seen on a regular basis here in Michigan, working from a list compiled by the Michigan chapter of the Audubon Society. This will be a lifelong project, that I began in January of 2013, and as I shoot better photos of this, or any other species, I will update the post for that species with better photos when I can. While this series is not intended to be a field guide per se, my minimum standard for the photos in this series is that one has to be able to make a positive identification of the species in my photos. The information posted here is from either my observations or the Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia, however, I have personally shot all the photos appearing in this series.

Scarlet Tanager, Piranga olivacea

The Scarlet Tanager is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the tanager family, it and other members of its genus are now classified in the cardinal family. The species’ plumage and vocalizations are similar to other members of the cardinal family.

Adults have pale stout smooth bills. Adult males are bright red with black wings and tail. Females are yellowish on the underparts and olive on top, with olive-brown wings and tail. The adult male’s winter plumage is similar to the female’s, but the wings and tail remain darker. Young males briefly show a more complex variegated plumage intermediate between adult males and females.

Their breeding habitat is large forested areas, especially with oaks, across eastern North America. Scarlet Tanagers migrate to northwestern South America, passing through Central America around April, and again around October.

They begin arriving on the breeding grounds in numbers by about May and already start to move south again in mid-summer, by early October they are all on their way south.

Scarlet Tanagers are often out of sight, foraging high in trees, sometimes flying out to catch insects in flight. They eat mainly insects and fruit.

These birds do best in the forest interior, where they are less exposed to predators and brood parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird. Their nests are typically built on horizontal tree branches.

On to my photos:

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

Male scarlet tanager

This is number 106 in my photo life list, only 244 to go!

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

Advertisement