Ahoy! A Scarlet Tanager has arrived!

Oh, how we love the dashing, brilliant red feathers of the male Scarlet Tanager! We get to see this gorgeous bird for just a few days in springtime. They eat fruit and insects during migration, and then they prefer supping on insects during the rest of the summer. I've heard that they also enjoy Wild Bird High Energy Suet (with corn, millet, and sunflower meal in a suet base.)

We hope to see a female in the next few days, before they depart. Surprisingly, the females are olive-yellow in color, and I know at a quick glance that I might easily confuse them with goldfinches. Check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to learn more about Scarlet Tanagers;-)

Tanagers prefer large, undisturbed tracts of forest, which we do not have in our neck of the woods, which is why we only see them during migration. They also tend to stay high up in the canopy of the nearby trees and periodically swoop down for chow. Luckily, they are not a shy as the Indigo Buntings, so I can get clearer photos of them.