Scarlet Tanager--He's Baaack!

This is a post about a scarlet tanager settin' on a post.


The post stands outside my studio window, and I can't remember why we put it up. Maybe to hang things off'n. I recollect a hanging basket on that nail there.

On this fine day there is something sitting on the post that's hard to miss. He seems to be comparing his reds to those of the geraniums.



In truth, he's considering a bath.

I have just cleaned the Spa and since he keeps an eye on it and on me, I know he'll be around soon after I put away the Comet and the scrub brush.

If I had silken plumage the color of a ripe jalapeno, I'd be fussy about where I bathed, too.



Inside, I am hyperventilating, hoping to catch a few more exposures of him with the red gerania.



I am not disappointed. He shuttles between the post and the Spa, perching, preening, ruffling, then diving back in.

He is a rocket, a smooth scarlet packet of beauty. And this bubbly Bird Spa has lured him out of his forest fastnesses.


Well, that, and a scrub brush and some Comet. Never think that the birds don't appreciate the many things, big and small, we do to make them happy.

A Tanager Comes to Call

I've written about the Bird Spa before. It attracts birds to my studio window that I really wouldn't see otherwise.

This lovely scarlet tanager visits most every day. He likes it when I scrub the Spa with Comet, clean the pump, and change the water. Then he comes more often, two or three times a day.

When he's had a drink and maybe a bath, he can't help but sing about it. Once he fetched up only a few feet from the window and I was ready with my camera.

His song sounds like a robin with a very bad sore throat--burry and harsh, not very melodic. That's OK. You don't need to be melodic when you flouresce. He could say BAP BAP BAP for all I care.



In this photo, you can see the retained feathers from winter plumage--greenish olive--in his lower wing.


You beautiful thing. Keep visiting, and I will keep scrubbing, because you deserve the best.

Do Tanagers Eat Corn?

Another installment in the Tanager Toddler series. Here we have another immature male scarlet tanager (evidenced by the black feathers coming in on the green immature plumage of his wings) finding his way in the world. Birds learn, in large part, by watching other birds. When an individual sees other birds eating, it will investigate to see if that fare suits it, too, even if the other birds are of another species. This tanager was attracted to a little group of goldfinches eating mixed seed beneath our feeders. It landed on the ground--already a bit aberrant for a bird that normally gleans insects in the treetops--and hopped amongst the lookalike goldfinches in fresh winter plumage.

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is not the same.Tanagers live on insects and fruit, and are not adapted to eating seed or grain. Nevertheless...

Watching the other birds carefully, it picked up some cracked corn, masticated it, and swallowed. Hmm. Not good, but not horrible, either.

It ate four pieces, occasionally bullying the goldfinches, who were more interested in black oil sunflower seed. And then it flew off.

So the answer to the question: Do tanagers eat corn? has to be: Yes, if it seems like a good idea at the time. I doubt this bird will make a habit of eating corn at feeders, but the knowledge he gained today might come in handy should there be a cold snap next spring. It's all grist for his little mill, grist for ours, too. Here ends, for now, the Birds Eating Weird Things series.

How to Eat a Wasp

The young tanager from the previous post made a short flight to the birch next to my studio window, where he captured an insect. Ooh, what's he got?
Could it be? Is it a paper wasp? Eeek!
Durn tootin'. It's a wasp. Yikes. Notice how he's holding it? By the bidness end. And he's biting it for all he's worth.
The crushing power of a tanager bill is considerable. I'm sure he disabled the stinger the moment he grabbed it. That's one of the benefits of having hard lips. Sometimes I think how cool it would be to have a beak. You could open bottles and cans, pre-drill holes, remove tags, henpeck your husband when he needed it.

Even more mastication of the abdomen.
Only when the abdomen was thoroughly crushed did the bird move on to processing the thorax and head.
This is the last shot before he swallowed his catch. Look how he's got the wasp's abdomen all mooshed out.

Tanagers as a genus are well-adapted to feeding on bees and wasps. In fact, most Augusts see a young male summer tanager or two, perched on one of our high backyard snags, leaping up and catching yellowjackets and wasps as they sail by. They'll repair back to the snag to bite and hammer the bug into stingless submission before swallowing it down. I have a friend in Connecticut who had a summer tanager spend most of the winter in his Old Lyme backyard, nailing honeybees as they emerged from the hive for a look around. Those bees kept the tanager going through quite a bit of cold and snow. Hank was glad to donate to the redbird's cause.

And that is what I know about tanagers and Hymenopterae.

Tanager Toddler

One of the reasons I love fall birding more than any other season is the preponderance of young birds passing through. Not only are they in confusing plumages, made to order for a Science Chimp to puzzle over, but they do the neatest things. Having raised so many young birds, I understand that a big part of learning what to eat is trying everything at least once.
So when an immature scarlet tanager landed on the spent cardinal flower stalks and began prying at the round seed capsules, I watched with great interest. Knowing that lobelia is poisonous, at least to mammals, I was intrigued. Birds generally "know" that stuff. How, I have no clue.He (his black wings gave away his sex, even at this tender age) twisted and pried, but the tanager failed to dislodge a capsule. Wonder what he'd have done had he succeeded? Swallowed it down? Knowing tanagers, he probably would have masticated it with that stout bill to see how it tasted first.Hmm. Not very fruity.Bleh, in fact. Not food. Next?I love his little blue feet in this shot. Cute undertoe.Cuter yet. He's lookin' for bugs now, about 5' from my lens, under the studio window. Wonder what he'll come up with?

Next: Eek! What's he got?

Tanager Toilette

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to be watching the Bird Spa when a tanager or oriole stops by to wash the grime of a long migration from its brilliant feathers. This tanager was singing lustily in the birch just outside my studio window. I’d been gardening all morning, and had just come in the studio to check my e-mail. My camera was still outside on the picnic table in the front yard, naturally. I dithered in agony. If I tried to sneak out the door to get my camera, I might spook the tanager. But in my experience, this is usually a once-per-spring event.

I finally decided to go for it. I walked out, hugging the side yard, head down, as if the last thing on my mind was the beautiful bird bathing in my Spa. I grabbed the camera off the picnic table and walked back, head down. The tanager never budged. Once back inside, I focused and snapped, capturing his beauty to share. My studio is like a big ol’ blind, and birds readily give up their portraits and secrets to me as I lurk in its friendly confines.
How lucky we are to have such a bird in the treetops, singing its hurried, burry song, the robin with a sore throat.

This is why I’m happy to scrub, rinse and refill the Spa every four days without fail. Tanagers like it sparkling clean.

He hadn't been bathing long when a female bluebird, weary from brooding her young, came down and body-slammed him out of the water. Nice. Mrs. B. You can bathe any time. Why must you be so obnoxious?
Oh, I'm not bad. But this garish woodland bird needs to understand that this is my bath, and there are rules about its use. Mainly, I use it first and always. What's he done to contribute to society? Sing? Fly 4,000 miles to get to his territory? Donate sperm here and there? I am a working mother. I've got babies to feed. I bathe first.
The tanager repaired to the poolside birch, where he sorted through his glowing plumage only a yard from the bossy bluebird.Must dip into the oil gland to waterproof my feathers.Ahh. I don't expect to see another tanager in the bath until fall. Who knows what goes on while I'm traveling? Best not to think of the things unseen, unappreciated; best to be happy with what I do manage to capture.

Watching at the Window

Lately, I've been tethered to the drawing table, doing a journal cover. I don't know why my number keeps coming up for the Auk, but it does, and I'm not arguing. If they're not sick of me yet, I'll do another cover for them. I've had the ivory-billed woodpecker flying through the fall bayou, the long-tailed manakins dancing, and now I'm working on a subtly beautiful fringillid. Fun!

It's a terrific hummingbird summer, after a horrible one last year. Last year, my high count at the feeder all summer was four birds at once. This year, it's 14, and the humming and bickering and thrumming and chittering never stop. I LOVE it. I stand right next to the feeder and play with my camera and the willing subjects. I've got endless flight pictures of hummingbirds now. Like this one. I know it's no prizewinner, because I was too lazy to make sure there was a nice background, but I like seeing them frozen in mid hummm.

I like even more seeing them sitting on favored perches, and feeding from the flowers in my garden. This little dude sits in the birch right outside the studio window most all day, every day. He's guarding the cardinalflower bed directly below him. Oh, how I love to take pictures of him, trying to get his gorget flashing. Almost:

And better:I sneak glances out the window every time I go to dip a brush back into the paint. And I see the most wonderful things, so I keep the camera with its 300 mm. zoom lens on and ready at hand. I especially like watching the bath on these dry, late-summer days. It's almost never empty, especially when it's just been cleaned. The birds really appreciate my scrubbing it with Comet to get all the slime and droppings out of it, so I do that about every fourth day. Then, they literally line up to bathe there. Birds know from clean: they have to, to keep those flight feathers in top condition. They hate to be dirty, and they don't like dirty water or feeders, either.
This time of year, we've got oodles of young scarlet tanagers, as well as molting adults in every motley plumage. We've noticed that scarlet tanagers are very feisty birds. They love to chase and fight and defend what they believe to be theirs. Like the entire Bird Spa. Bad judgement on this young tufted titmouse's part to challenge Miss Bossy Boots. Titmice are feisty, too. This one gives a mewling call and threatens with open bill. But it still won't go in the water with that big toothed bill pointed at it. And finally: the shot I guess I was waiting for. I was waiting for all of them, really, but this is the kicker. The titmouse reminds me of Garuda.
The tanager won, as it has in every confrontation I've witnessed. Notice that she is sitting right on the bubbler, turning the spa into a tanager bidet. And feeling not one bit apologetic about it, either. Maybe she just had a birthday and is feeling like she's entitled. The titmouse had to wait to bathe until she went up to to the birch to scratch and preen. Note: tanagers are overwing scratchers--they bring the leg behind and over the wing to scratch the face. So are hummingbirds. Raptors, parrots and waterfowl, to name just a few, are underwing scratchers. Just another little thing to notice and watch for...Hmm. What are woodpeckers? Doves? I can't remember. Must watch and see.
The wingbars are a function of the bird's youth. I'm not even sure this is a female, though her bathing habits might suggest as much.
When we go away, one of the things I ask our housesitters to do is to keep the bath full. Running out of seed or suet dough is no big deal, but on this dry ridge, water is the most precious commodity we offer the birds, and we take the responsibility seriously. If you do nothing else in your backyard, get some clean moving water going. The rewards, like the water, continually recirculate.