All birds Cardinals and Allies
Summer Tanager
Piranga rubra
Here April to October.
Recorded by Chris Harrison. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, via xeno-canto, trimmed and volume evened out.
Look for
- Grown-up males are rosy red all over, all year long.
- Females are a rich yellow, with plain wings.
- A big, pale bill. Young males can be patchy red and yellow.
A little about it
Summer tanagers come here for the summer. Look for them from April to October, and May has the most. In winter, they live far to the south, from Mexico all the way to Bolivia and Brazil.
They eat mostly bugs, like beetles, cicadas, caterpillars, and grasshoppers. They're known for eating bees and wasps. They eat a few berries too.
A summer tanager moves slowly through the treetops and stops to look around. Sometimes it flies out to catch a bug in midair. Its song sounds like a robin's, only softer and sweeter.
The female builds the nest on a branch, often in an oak or a pine. It's usually 10 to 35 feet up. She lays 3 to 5 eggs, most often 4.
Fun fact
Stinging bugs don't seem to scare a Summer Tanager. It will break into a wasp nest to eat the baby wasps inside. Sometimes it even becomes a pest around beehives.
When it's here
- January: not here
- February: not here
- March: not here
- April: here
- May: here
- June: here
- July: here
- August: here
- September: here
- October: here
- November: not here
- December: not here
Taller bars mean more sightings. Most often seen in May.
How big
About 7 inches. A little bigger than a sparrow.
Where to look
Woods and groves of trees, especially oaks. Look and listen up high in the treetops, where it often hides in the leaves.
People have spotted it at Lake Thunderbird State Park.
Could it be something else?
Northern Cardinal
Also red, but the male has a pointed crest and a black mask around his bill. A male Summer Tanager has no crest. Cardinals live here all year.
Baltimore Oriole
The female is brown on top with an orange wash below, and she has white stripes on her wings. A female Summer Tanager is rich yellow, with plain wings.
More photos
Where these facts come from
- Audubon Guide to North American Birds
- When it's here: Sightings shared on iNaturalist in the 8 counties, all years.