Summertime Tanagers

By Bob Bowers
This story first appeared in birdingthebrookeandbeyond 

Male Western Tanager (Photo Bob and Prudy Bowers)

Summertime in SaddleBrooke is a secret we don’t share with snowbirds. Sure, we joke with them about the dry heat, tell them our summer monsoon should be renamed the summer ‘nonsoon’ and encourage them to leave before our first hundred-degree day. Once they’ve cleared out, we kick back, relax and enjoy the traffic-free roads, and half-empty restaurants. Those snowbirds that flee our comfortable single-digit humidity for the breath-stealing humidity beyond the desert also miss out on some of the best birding of the year. Summer is when we watch the miracle of nest-building, courtship displays and babies. Who wants to drive a thousand miles and miss watching the daily drama of quail trying to get a dozen hatchlings from windup toy to puberty? Deserting the desert in the summer also means missing most of our hummingbirds and many of our most colorful migrants. Our tanagers are a good example.

Female Western Tanager contemplates a bee and palm fruits (Photo Bob and Prudy Bowers)

Part of the Cardinalidae family, all five U.S. tanagers belong to the same genus, Piranga (not Latin or Greek, but Amazonian Tupi language for ‘an unknown small bird’). All five of these are found in Arizona although the Scarlet Tanager, common to the eastern U.S., is rare here. The Flame-colored Tanager (from Mexico) is also rare here, but even rarer in Texas, the only other state where it’s seen. One of the other three species, the Hepatic Tanager, is mostly found in just two other U.S. states, New Mexico and Texas, while the remaining two species, the Summer Tanager and the Western Tanager are far more widespread. If you have any doubts about these birds being colorful, consider the names, scarlet, flame-colored and hepatic (liver-red). The Western and Summer are no less eye-catching. The male Summer is a bright rosy red overall and the male Western a red-headed black and yellow bird with a distinctive yellow wing bar. 

Male Hepatic Tanager by Mike Henry

The Hepatic Tanager is the most widely distributed Piranga tanager, ranging from the Southwest U.S. all the way to northern Argentina. And although its English name refers to a liver-red coloration, its species name flava (Latin for golden-yellow) comes from its original description, based on a female bird in Paraguay. In Arizona, Hepatic Tanager is a common summer resident of higher elevations with pine, oak, juniper and other conifers.

The Western Tanager, the quintessential bird of western forests, is found west of mid-Kansas, north into Canada and south into Mexico, where it winters. Last summer our neighbor’s palm tree sprouted tiny fruits on long stems that developed into bird magnets, drawing many Western Tanagers (as many as 30 at a time!) for weeks during their southbound migration. They breed farther north (60 degrees) than any other tanager, spending as little as two weeks in their northernmost habitat.

Male Summer Tanager by Greg Lavaty

Summer Tanagers are found mostly in the southern states from California to Florida, and the male may be our most striking summer migrant as the only all-red bird in North America. A berry and fruit eater of riparian woodlands, the Summer Tanager is also well known for eating bees and wasps.

Male Flame-colored Tanager by Bryan J Smith

Last but certainly not least, just in the past few weeks, several Flame-colored Tanagers were seen in multiple canyons of the Huachuca Mountains. This rare visitor that ranges down through Mexico to Panama, has two white wing bars that separate it from the rest of our tanagers. And that mix of orange and yellow feathers is hard to beat!

If you have the chance, stick around this summer and treat yourself to the colorful eye candy of our tanagers!

Bob Bowers is a birding photographer/writer who has published articles in the Vermilion Flycatcher as well as newspapers and magazines in Arizona, Colorado, and Mexico. He and his wife Prudy lead Tucson Audubon field trips and volunteer for the Tucson Bird Count and Catalina State Park's Nature Program.