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The Practiced Eye

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The Practiced Eye THE PRACTICED EYE Notes on femaletanagers Kenn Kaufman Photographs by Barth Schorre from VIREO SummerTanager. Photo: Barth Schorre/VIREO (s08/11/151). that the most "typical" tanagersare TmembersWOULD BEof REASONABLEthe genus Tangara,TO SAY nearly fifty speciesof bright multi-col- ored avian gems. In Tangara, the sexes usuallylook the same,young birds seem to attain adult plumage fairly quickly, and the brilliant colorpatterns generally rule out any kinds of problemsin field identification. However,Tangara tanagers (like most other tanagers)inhabit the deeptropics. North of the Mexican border, the breeding tanagersbelong to the genus Piranga, and in this group the sexesare colored differently. Adult males are bright and distinctive enough to spark the interest of the beginning birder, while sorting out the females can pro- vide mental exercise for the more ex- perienced observer. Widespread across the southern United States, the Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) is the most uniformly coloredof our tanagers:unmarked rose- red in the male, unmarkedgolden yel- low in the female. The overall color of femalesmay vary from brownish-yellow to bright, even with orangeor reddish SummerTanager• Photo: Barth Schorre/VIREO (s08/11/152) Volume42, Number1 3 coverts,unless the plumage is in very worn condition. Bill sizeis an excellent field mark, es- pecially in bad light where color differ- encesmay be questionable.The bill of Scarlet Tanager is visibly shorter than that of Summer Tanager. The Searlet alsousually has pale yellowlores (often, but not always, slightly darkened in SummerTanager), and, in combination with the smaller bill, this creates a no- riceablydifferent facial expression. ScarletTanagers start to get compli- cated in late summer. Adults of our tan- ager speciesall go through a complete molt beforemigrating south;but while the winter and summer plumagesare essentiallyidentical in SummerTanager, the adult male ScarletTanager puts on a winter plumagein which all the red is replacedby olive-green.So the assort- ment of greenishScarlet Tanagers seen in fall includes some that are typical adult females,some with black wings (adult males), some havingdark wings with black feathers mixed in (first-au- tumn males), and some with a more dusky-greentone to the body plumage Scarlet Tanager.Photo: Barth Schorre/VIREO (s08/11/172) (first-autumn females). It would seem that the Western Tan- ager(Piranga !udoviciana) would always be easily separatedfrom the othersby the factthat it haswing-bars. Generally, this is true. But as Tom Davis pointed out yearsago in this journal (American Birds26:713-714, August1972), Scarlet Tanagersin their first autumn can show wing-bars,sometimes quite noticeably. So in identifyinga WesternTanager out of range,it is importantto look for other things besidesthe simple presenceor absenceof wing-bars. In terms of shape,Western and Scar- let tanagersare quite similar; both are smaller-billed than Summer Tanager. Western also tends to have greenish tones, like the Scarlet, although often paler.However, the upper back (between Scarlet Tanager.Photo: Barth Schorre/grlREO (s08/11/171). the wings)is stronglywashed with gray tingeson some,but the warm tonesare body plumagecreates a more usefulfirst in the female Western Tanager, con- alwaysdominant. Seen in good light, a impression:Scarlet Tanager looks more trasting with the more greenish nape femaleSummer Tanager will neverlook generally green. Its back looks more and rump. On the female Scarlet the stronglygreenish. olive-green (in Summer Tanager the back is only slightly grayer than the The female ScarletTanager (Piranga back tends toward olive-brown or olive- nape, and there is no distinct line of olivacea)is alsorelatively plain, lacking gray), and its underpartsare more yel- contrast separatingthe two areas. The strong contrast. In a reflection of the low-green(lacking the mustard-colored color of the underpartsis variable, but black wings that are the trademark of or ochre tones of Summer Tanager). Westernmay look grayishon the flanks the male Scarlet,the female'swings are With a closelook at the wings,the fe- and whirishon the belly more oftenthan also subtly darker than the rest of the male Scarlet tends to look more uni- Searlet Tanager does. plumage. But it can be very tricky to formly dark on the coverts:dark brown Not picturedhere is HepaticTanager separatefemale-plumaged Scarlet and with a variablegreen wash, but with no (Pirangafiava),a specialtyof the south- Summer tanagers by the darkness of obviouspale edges;the femaleSummer westernmountains. The female is quite their wings alone. Overall color of the usuallyhas yellow tips or edgeson the similar to the female Summer Tanager, 4 AmericanBirds, Spring 1988 althoughthe Hepaticshows a graypatch on the ear-coverts and a gray wash on the sides. In parts of the Southwest, a briefly-seen female Summer/Hepatic type may have to be dismissed as a question mark. However, this problem--and other identification problems involving our tanagers---canbe quickly solvedif the bird happensto call. Unlike the Tangara tanagersof the tropics,which are mostly insipidand uninterestingvocally, all our Piranga tanagers have robust voices. Their callnotes,heard at all seasons,are distinctive:a musical chip or chip-burr in ScarletTanager, a cracklingpickituck in Summer Tanager,a lighter risingpri- didit in Western Tanager, and a low chuckin Hepatic Tanager.As in somany other cases,the practiced eye can be aided substantiallyby a perceptiveear. WesternTanager. Photo: Barth $chorre/VIREO (s08/11/175). A note on the photographs: Barth Schorre has had exposure in this col- umn before, but this time he has a mo- nopoly. Based in the Houston area, Schorredoes much of his photography by settingup his blind in front of choice wateringspots when springmigration is passingthrough the Upper TexasCoast. This strategyhas made it possiblefor him to put hundredsof photosinto the VIREO collection,representing a high percentageof all the migratory song- birds of eastern North America. The quality of Schorre's portraits gives an indication of what can be done with technical skill and a little patience. VIREO (Visual Resources for Orni- thology), at the Academy of Natural Sciencesof Philadelphia, is the world's first and foremostscientifically-curated collection of bird photographs.Estab- lished in 1979, the collection now holds more than 100,000 images,representing well over one-third of the world's bird species.For more background, see the feature on VIREO by J.P. Myers et al. in American Birds Volume 38, Number 3, May-June 1984. WesternTanager. Photo: Barth Schorre/VIREO (s08/11/178) Volume 42, Number I 5 .
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