Scarlet Tanager

Scarlet Tanager

Scarlet Tanager: Medium tanager with brilliant red body, black wings, tail. The only bird in North America with this unique plumage. Heavy bill is yellow-gray. Gray legs and feet. Winter male has dull green upperparts, yellow-green underparts, often interspersed with red during molt.

● Song: "querit, queer, query, querit, queer", "chip-churr"

● Foraging & Feeding: Scarlet Tanager: Feeds on insects, fruits, berries, and buds. Forages high in trees, but may seek prey on the ground, or catch insects in the air.

● Breeding & nesting: Scarlet Tanager: Two to five blue green eggs marked with brown are laid in a loose nest made of grass, rootlets, forbs, and twigs, lined with fine grass, forbs, and rootlets, and built on a horizontal branch well out from the trunk, 20 to 30 feet above the ground. Incubation ranges from 13 to 14 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Scarlet Tanager: Summer and Hepatic Tanagers are entirely red. Female Summer and Hepatic Tanagers have orange washes on underparts; female Hepatic also has dark bill.

Flight Pattern