How to Identify aSummer Tanager
Piranga rubra · 6.7 in (17 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Uniform rosy-red over the entire body including wings and tail, with a large pale bill.
Female
Mustard-yellow to olive overall, warmer and more orange-toned than a female Scarlet Tanager.
Male photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Female photo: Gonzalo Zepeda Martínez / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Field marks
- Red wings and tail, not black
- No crest and no face mask
- Large, pale, blunt bill
- Slightly rosier and less scarlet than a cardinal
Similar species
What it sounds like
A sweet robin-like warble, and a distinctive staccato "pit-ti-tuck" call.
Behaviour that gives it away
Specialises in bees and wasps, catching them in flight and beating them against a branch to remove the sting before eating.
Habitat & range
Open woodland, especially oak and pine-oak, across the South and lower Midwest.
When you'll see it
A summer visitor that arrives to breed in North America.
What it eats
Bees, wasps and other insects, plus fruit.
Did you know?
It is a bee and wasp specialist, and rubs the stinger out of a captured insect against a branch before swallowing it.
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