Everything about The Scarlet Tanager totally explained
The
Scarlet Tanager,
Piranga olivacea, is a medium-sized
American songbird. Traditionally placed in the
tanager family (Thraupidae) it's now thought to be much closer to cardinals (
Cardinalidae). With their coloration, they somewhat remind of the
Northern Cardinal (
Cardinalis cardinalis) and indeed it seems that this bird is a quite close relative.
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. It apparently was such a specimen that was first scientifically described. Hence the older though somewhat confusing
specific name olivacea ("the
olive-colored one") is used rather than, as had been common throughout the
19th century,
erythromelas ("the red-and-black one").
Their breeding habitat is large forested areas, especially with
oaks, across eastern
North America. These birds
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're all on their way south. This bird is an extremely rare vagrant to western
Europe.
These birds are often out of sight, foraging high in trees, sometimes flying out to catch insects in flight. They mainly eat insects and fruit.
They build a cup nest on a horizontal tree branch.
These birds do best in the forest interior, where they're less exposed to predators and
brood parasitism by the
Brown-headed Cowbird. Their numbers are declining in some areas due to
habitat fragmentation, but on a global scale they're a plentiful species.
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Scarlet Tanager'.
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