Scarlet Tanager

The Scarlet Tanager is a medium-sized American songbird renowned for its striking sexual dimorphism and its secretive lifestyle high in the forest canopy. During the breeding season, the male presents one of the most intense, saturated reds of any North American bird, contrasting sharply with its jet-black wings and tail. Despite this brilliant plumage, they are surprisingly difficult to spot among the dense green foliage of mature deciduous trees.

These birds are long-distance neotropical migrants, traveling thousands of miles each year between their breeding grounds in eastern North America and their wintering grounds in South America. They play an important ecological role in controlling forest insect populations, particularly caterpillars and canopy beetles.

Identifying a Scarlet Tanager depends heavily on the sex and season, as their plumage changes dramatically.

Male (Breeding)

• Body: Brilliant, glowing scarlet red.
• Wings and Tail: Solid coal-black with no wingbars.
• Bill: Pale, heavy, and horn-colored, slightly swollen.

Female and Immature

• Body: Overall drab olive-yellow or greenish-yellow above, with yellower underparts.
• Wings and Tail: Olive-brown to dark grayish-brown. Crucially, they lack bold white wingbars.

Non-Breeding Male (Fall)

• Body: Molts from bright red to olive-green, resembling females.
• Wings and Tail: Retain the stark, jet-black coloration, making them distinguishable from females.

Similar Species

• Summer Tanager: The male is entirely rose-red without black wings. The female is more mustard-yellow or orange-yellow with a larger, heavier bill.
• Western Tanager: Found mostly in the West, though rare vagrants occur in the East. Males have a red head, yellow body, and prominent white and yellow wingbars.
• Northern Cardinal: Larger, with a prominent crest, black face mask, and a thick red conical bill.

During the breeding season (May to August), Scarlet Tanagers require large, unbroken tracts of mature deciduous and mixed forests. They show a strong preference for stands containing mature oaks, maples, beeches, and hemlocks, where they can forage high above the ground. Forest fragmentation is a known threat, as it increases exposure to nest parasites like the Brown-headed Cowbird.

Migration and Winter Range

• Spring/Fall: Their migratory route takes them across the Gulf of Mexico in a single flight or along the Central American land bridge.
• Winter: They winter in the montane forests and canopy edges of the northwestern Andes, spanning from Colombia and Venezuela South to Bolivia.

Feeding Behavior

Scarlet Tanagers are primarily insectivorous during the spring and summer. They search leaf clusters high in the canopy, slowly moving along branches to glean caterpillars, beetles, wasps, and ants. They are also adept at sallying out to catch flying insects mid-air. To consume stinging insects like bees and wasps, they scrape them against a branch to remove the stinger before swallowing. In late summer and on their wintering grounds, they consume a wide variety of wild berries and small fruits.

Voice

• Song: A series of 4 to 7 raspy, buzzy phrases that sound like a Robin with a sore throat, rising and falling in pitch.
• Call: A highly distinctive, abrupt, two-noted chick-burr or chip-churr sound. This call is often the easiest way to locate this high-canopy dweller.

Nesting and Reproduction

Females construct a cup-shaped nest, usually positioned high in a horizontal branch of a mature hardwood tree. The nest is often so thin that eggs can be seen from beneath. A typical clutch consists of 3 to 5 bluish-green eggs speckled with brown. The female incubates the eggs for about 13 to 14 days, and both parents cooperate to feed the rapidly growing nestlings.