The male Summer Tanager. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal
It takes some time and luck to spot the Summer Tanager, since these birds spend much of their time hidden away from view, at the very top of the canopy.
But when you do get to see one, even if it’s just a glimpse, the sight stays with you like artwork.
The male tanager is the only completely red bird in North America, which makes it a striking sight against the green of the trees where it hangs out. And the female is a pale yellow with greenish tints that creates a sharp contrast when the two are side by side.
The female tanager chattered almost nonstop this morning.
We had the great fortune of camping just beneath a pair of Summer Tanagers not long ago in central Tennessee outside Nashville. Once we figured out their favorite spots, and they got used to us, we were treated to a full study of how these two birds relate, communicate, sometimes seem to argue and take care of one another.
Here’s a video that gets almost all of that across, as the two Summer Tanagers chatter back and forth across the canopy:
We can’t know exactly what they’re going on about in this video, but new research says birds have a far wider range of exchanges than once thought. They could be discussing their nesting needs, or letting each other know where the other is, or she could be asking for something more to eat as she guards the nest. They could even be in the midst of an argument.
A fascinating new book by Jennifer Ackerman, The Bird Way, A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent and Think, says birds have a rich social life. She says the language of birds can be complicated, emotional, and has its own syntax. This book suggests that birds will even lie at times, implying a level of sophistication far beyond what we always thought.
In the encounters we watched, the female was the more vocal, delivering long complicated songs that had her jumping around her perch and raising and lowering her head. The male answered mostly in single chirps that surely looked like he was going along with what he was hearing.
Birdsongs are primarily about mating and defending territory, but exchanges like this one that seem more like household conversations are part of the repertoire as well. The Cornell Lab’s Handbook of Bird Biology, the bible of bird life, says bird pairs of all kinds are constantly seen singing duets, chatting back and forth and sometimes simply working on their relationships by staying in close touch.
The handbook points out that until recently, researchers studying birdsongs had only their ears to rely on. Now, a whole set of sophisticated listening and digital recording tools are helping to analyze bird communication. We may soon know a lot more about what birds like the tanagers are up to.
Our two tanagers also spent a lot of their day looking for food.
They feed on all manner of insects — bees, wasps, flies, grasshoppers, spiders, ants and termites – along with fruit, citrus and weeds. They’ll catch insects in midair and bring them back to a branch to consume. The female builds the nest up in the canopy, but the two work together, with the male accompanying her as she goes.
The male tanager has just snagged a dragonfly and is working on finishing it off.
The tanager has a series of whistling songs, not unlike the American Robin. Here are some samples.
Tanager pairs are monogamous during their mating, but only for one season. So these two will go separate ways when they migrate south sometime this month.
The female collects materials for their nest.
The Summer Tanager is found all across the southern half of the U.S. and spends the winter in Central America and northern parts of South America. Here’s an animation of their travels through the year from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, showing them headed out in October to go south:
Of the 37 species in the Eastern U.S., the male Prothonotary is the only one that glows. His head is a saturated yellow-orange, earning him the nickname “Golden Swamp Warbler.”
Robert Rice, a veteran bird scientist who spent his career with the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center, explained what happens: “They can eat so much fruit, it ferments in their gut and they go wobbly for a while,” Rice said.
It’s a magnificent sight, one I assumed I’d miss this year with our limited mobility. But the other day, wandering through the trees not 50 feet from our home, I noticed what looked like a new arrival. It was the first of a flock of Cedar Waxwings that gradually became an avalanche, all collecting insects as if their lives depended on it.
As birders all know, the more people get interested in birds, the more likely they are to want our state and federal government agencies to protect them.
First it zigged and zagged along the edge of the shore, lunging for prospects as it followed its own obstacle course though the water. Then, apparently unhappy with the results, it lifted off and headed to a new spot. That’s when the heron spotted something near the surface of the water.
Most of the answers are guesses, since the bird wasn’t tagged and certainly isn’t talking. But Andrew Farnsworth, a research associate with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who specializes in migration, said the likely drivers are genetic migration instincts that go off track, lack of food back home and changing weather patterns that are becoming more frequent around the globe.
About 4,000 Florida Scrub-Jays remain in a handful of scattered Central Florida patches of elevated scrub land that sit on sandy soil, with low bushy growth and few trees. As development consumes what’s left of this habitat, state and county researchers are waging a campaign to keep the jays from dwindling further, to the point of moving whole families when their territories are threatened.
