Scarlet Tanager

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Scarlet Tanager

The Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea) is a medium-sized American

Americas

The Americas are the region of the Western hemisphere that consists of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions....
songbird

Songbird

A songbird or oscine is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of Passerine , in which the syrinx is developed in such a way as to produce various sound notes, commonly known as bird song....
. Traditionally placed in the tanager

Tanager

The tanagers are a family , Thraupidae, of birds in the order Passeriformes. The family has an Americas distribution.There were traditionally about 240 species of tanagers, but the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux....
family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
(Thraupidae) it is now thought to be much closer to cardinals (Cardinalidae). With their coloration, they somewhat remind of the Northern Cardinal

Northern Cardinal

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Encyclopedia

The Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea) is a medium-sized American

Americas

The Americas are the region of the Western hemisphere that consists of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions....
songbird

Songbird

Tanager

Family (biology)

Northern Cardinal

The Northern Cardinal or Redbird is a North American bird in the Cardinalidae family . It is found from southern Canada through the eastern United States from Maine to Texas and south through Mexico to northern Guatemala and Belize....
(Cardinalis cardinalis) and indeed it seems that this bird is a quite close relative.

Adults have pale stout smooth bills. Adult males are bright red with black wings and tail; females are yellowish on the underparts and olive on top, with olive-brown wings and tail. The adult male's winter plumage is similar to the female's, but the wings and tail remain darker. Young males briefly show a more complex variegated plumage intermediate between adult males and females. It apparently was such a specimen that was first scientifically described. Hence the older though somewhat confusing specific name

Specific name

In zoological nomenclature, a specific name or specific epithet is the second part in the name of a species . The first part is the name of the genus....
olivacea ("the olive-colored one") is used rather than, as had been common throughout the 19th century, erythromelas ("the red-and-black one").

Their breeding habitat is large forested areas, especially with oak

Oak

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of about 400 species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus , which are listed in the List of Quercus species, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus....
s, across eastern North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
. These birds migrate

Bird migration

Bird migration refers to the regular seasonal journeys undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather....
to northwestern South America

South America

South America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere....
, passing through Central America

Central America

Central America is a central geography region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmus portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast....
around April, and again around October. They begin arriving on the breeding grounds in numbers by about May and already start to move south again in mid-summer; by early October they are all on their way south. This bird is an extremely rare vagrant to western Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
.

These birds are often out of sight, foraging high in trees, sometimes flying out to catch insects in flight. They mainly eat insects and fruit.

They build a cup nest on a horizontal tree branch.

These birds do best in the forest interior, where they are less exposed to predators and brood parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

The Brown-headed Cowbird is a small brood parasite icterid of temperate to subtropical North America. They are permanent residents in the southern parts of their range; northern birds bird migration to the southern United States and Mexico in winter, returning to their summer habitat about March/April....
. Their numbers are declining in some areas due to habitat fragmentation

Habitat fragmentation

Habitat fragmentation is a process of Natural environmental change important in evolution and conservation biology. As the name implies, it describes the emergence of discontinuities in an organism's preferred environment ....
, but on a global scale they are a plentiful species.

Footnotes

External links

- Cornell Lab of Ornithology
- South Dakota Birds and Birding
USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
on the Internet Bird Collection