Summer Tanager

An elegant, medium-sized songbird of the forest canopy, the Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) is famous for the adult male's brilliant, uniform strawberry-red plumage. Despite their common name, genetic research has revealed that they belong to the cardinal family (Cardinalidae) rather than the true tanagers (Thraupidae). These birds spend their summers in the southern and eastern United States before undertaking long-distance migrations to the Neotropics. Highly vocal, they are often detected first by their distinctive clicking calls sounding from high in the oak canopy.

Identifying the Summer Tanager relies heavily on plumage and bill characteristics:

• Adult Males: Draped in entirely rose-red or strawberry-red plumage from head to tail. Unlike the Northern Cardinal, they lack a crest or black face mask. Unlike the Scarlet Tanager, their wings and tail are also red, not black.
• Adult Females: Olive-yellow on the back and soft mustard-yellow on the underparts. Their wings are dusky green, lacking prominent white wing-bars.
• Immature Males: Exhibit a striking mottled patchiness of red, green, and yellow as they transition into adult plumage during their first spring.
• Bill: Thick, heavy, and pointed, with a pale dusky-ivory to yellowish horn color, which helps distinguish it from smaller warblers.

Similar Species

• Scarlet Tanager: The male Scarlet Tanager has contrasting jet-black wings and tail. Female Scarlet Tanagers have darker, blackish-olive wings and cooler green undersides.
• Northern Cardinal: Cardinals feature a prominent crest, a black mask around the base of the bill, and a heavy, intensely bright red-orange cone-shaped bill.
• Hepatic Tanager: Found in the southwestern US, males have a darker, grayish wash on their back, dark ear patches, and a blackish bill.

Summer Tanagers breed primarily in the southern and eastern United States, stretching as far west as New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California, where they are restricted to low-elevation riparian zones.

In the eastern half of their range, they favor open, mature deciduous woodlands, particularly those dominated by oak species (Quercus), as well as mixed pine-oak forests. They are generally absent from dense, unbroken coniferous forests.

During migration and on their wintering grounds in Central America and northern South America, they inhabit tropical forest edges, shade-grown coffee plantations, orchards, and second-growth scrublands, showing great adaptability in non-breeding habitats.

Feeding Habits and Diet

Summer Tanagers are specialized hymenopteran hunters, meaning they feed extensively on bees and wasps. They forage high in trees, sallying out in flycatcher-like fashion to capture insects mid-air. To avoid getting stung, the bird carries the insect back to a perch, beats it against a branch to kill or stun it, and then vigorously rubs the abdomen against the bark to remove the stinger before consuming it. They also feed on other insects and readily consume fruits, especially wild berries, during late summer and migration.

Vocalizations

The song of the Summer Tanager is a sweet, rolling series of nasal, whistled phrases, closely resembling the song of an American Robin but with a lazier, more burry tempo. Their most reliable tracking cue is their diagnostic call: a fast, clicking "pit-i-tuck" or "piky-tuck-tuck" that carries far through the forest canopy.

Nesting and Breeding

Monogamous pairs build their nests on horizontal limbs of deciduous trees, often far out from the trunk. The female constructs a somewhat flimsy cup made of dried grasses, bark strips, and weed stems. A clutch typically contains 3 to 4 pale blue-green or greenish-white eggs marked with brown splotches. The female incubates the eggs for about 11 to 12 days, and both parents cooperate in feeding the nestlings until they fledge.