Overview

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.

Scarlet Tanager: Breeds from extreme south-central to southeastern Canada to east-central U.S. across central Arkansas to North Carolina. Can be seen further south during migration. Spends winters in northwestern South American tropical forests. Found in deciduous forests, pine-oak woodlands, parks, and suburban areas with large trees.

Voice Text

"querit, queer, query, querit, queer", "chip-churr"

• Scarlet Tanagers have been recorded eating over 2,000 gypsy moth caterpillars in an hour.
• The song of the Scarlet Tanager has been compared to that of a “robin with a sore throat.”
• They become noisy and swoop around most birds who prey on them, such as Blue Jays and Eastern Screech owls, however they remain still and quiet around Merlins and American Crows.
• A group of tanagers are collectively known as a "season" of tanagers.

• Western Tanager
• Vermilion Flycatcher
• Summer Tanager
• Hepatic Tanager
• Flame-colored Tanager
• Northern Cardinal
• Crimson-collared Grosbeak
• Iiwi

Tanagers (Thraupidae)

ORDER

The tanagers are one of the one hundred eighteen families of birds in the order PASSERIFORMES (pronounced pas-ser-i-FOR-meez); a large taxonomic order that also includes the cardinals and grosbeaks, the Old World orioles, and the New World blackbirds.

FAMILY TAXONOMY

The tanager family, Thraupidae (pronounced THRAU-pih-dee), is a large family composed of three hundred and ninety-six species in one hundred and two genera restricted to the Americas.

NORTH AMERICA

There are seventy species of Thraupidae in twenty-four genera that occur in North America. Included among these species are the Scarlet Tanager, bush-tanagers, and the spindalis species of the Caribbean.

KNOWN FOR

The Scarlet Tanager, like many members of this family, is known for its brightly colored plumage. Vivid red and black, this bird shines like a red light against the green foliage.

PHYSICAL

The tanagers are small to medium-sized birds with medium length tails, fairly long wings, medium length legs with strong feet, and medium length fairly stout bills.

COLORATION

The tanager family is among the most brightly colored family of birds in the world. Just about every shade of color imaginable is shown by this family, especially in the glittering plumages of Tangara genus species in South America. The plumages of North American species are mostly red, yellow, and black, the females with duller yellow-olive coloration.

GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT

In North America, members of the Thraupidae occur in forested areas from southern Canada south into Mexico. In the United States and Canada, the Scarlet Tanager occurs in eastern deciduous forests and is mostly replaced by the Summer Tanager in the southeast and the Western Tanager in western coniferous forests. The Hepatic Tanager also occurs in southwestern coniferous forests, other tanager species in the United States being vagrants or introduced.

MIGRATION

A few tanager species in North America are long distance migrants to Central and South America.

HABITS

The North American tanager species are solitary birds on their breeding grounds, but often migrate in flocks and join mixed flocks on their tropical wintering grounds. Most species are arboreal birds that often occur high up in the canopy where they slowly forage for invertebrates and also take fruit.

CONSERVATION

The North American members of this family are not threatened, although a few species in South America are threatened by habitat destruction.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Summer Tanager eats a great deal of bees, often taking them right from their nests without too much apparent discomfort from their stings. Although the stings may not bother it too much, the Summer Tanager does not enjoy eating the stingers because it is often seen rubbing the stinger off on a branch before swallowing the bee.

Author

Artist

Michael Oberhofer