Overview

Summer Tanager: Large tanager, dark-red overall with a large, pale gray bill. Legs and feet are gray. It is the only entirely red bird in North America. It specializes in eating bees and wasps, which is why it is also known as the bee bird. Swift direct flight with quick wing strokes.

Range and Habitat

Summer Tanager: Breeds from southern California, Nevada, Nebraska, and New Jersey, south to the Gulf Coast and northern Mexico. Spends winters in tropics. Prefers open oak, hickory, and mixed oak-pine woodlands; also found in parks, orchards, and along roadsides.

Breeding and Nesting

Summer Tanager: Three to five brown marked, light blue or green eggs are laid in a nest made of grass, stems, and moss, lined with fine grass, and built 10 to 35 feet above the ground on a horizontal limb of an oak or pine. Incubation ranges from 11 to 12 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Summer Tanager: Feeds mainly on insects, including bees, wasps, caterpillars, grasshoppers, dragonflies, beetles, and cicadas. Forages in the tops of trees by gleaning from twigs and leaves; occasionally hovers at leaf clusters.

Readily Eats

Safflower, Apple Slices, Suet, Millet, Peanut Kernels, Fruit

Vocalization

Summer Tanager: Song is highly variable, but generally consists of five or more phrases each with two to four notes. Call is a harsh, descending "pituck" or "tipi-tuck-i-tuck."

Similar Species

Summer Tanager: Male and female Hepatic Tanagers have dark bills and cheek patches.