Summer Tanager

Adult males are entirely rosy-red or strawberry-red. Adult females are a dull mustard-yellow or olive-yellow. Immature males show a patchy transition plumage with red and yellow feathers mixed.

All-red male with no black wings; yellowish female; stout, pale yellowish bill; lack of wing bars on both sexes.

Length: 17 cm (6.7 in), Wingspan: 28 cm (11 in), Weight: 25-35 g (0.9-1.2 oz)

Call is a distinct, rhythmic, staccato 'pit-tuck' or 'chup-chup'. Song is a series of rich, musical, robin-like whistles that sound somewhat lazy or hoarse.

Insects, especially bees and wasps, as well as berries and fruit. They catch flying insects on the wing or snatch them from vegetation.

Open deciduous and mixed forests, particularly oak woods, forest edges, river valleys, and sometimes suburban shade trees with mature vegetation.

Neotropical migrant; spends winters in Central and South America and returns north to the United States and northern Mexico to breed.

Builds a loose, shallow cup nest of twigs, grass, and bark strips on a horizontal tree branch, usually far out from the trunk. Clutch size is typically 3 to 4 pale blue or greenish eggs spotted with brown.

Scarlet Tanager males have black wings and tails (unlike the entirely red Summer Tanager). Female Summer Tanagers resemble other tanagers or female orioles but lack wing bars and have a stouter bill.

Acts as an important predator of forest insects, particularly wasps and bees, helping regulate populations in woodland ecosystems.

IUCN Least Concern, with stable to slightly increasing populations.

Listen for their distinctive, chip-burbling songs in open deciduous woods, forest edges, or parks. Look high in the canopy where they frequently sally out after flying insects.

Summer Tanagers are one of the few bird species that routinely specialize in eating stinging insects like wasps and bees. They rub captured wasps against branches to remove the stingers before eating them.