topic Beautiful red bird in Community Chat

Beautiful red bird

151949 — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 13:45:54 GMT

I am 67 years old and the only red bird I have ever seen is a cardinal. Now cardinals are beautiful but today I saw a different red bird. No crest , no black beak - not the shape or size of a cardinal. It looked like a red canary so I looked it up in google and there was my visitor - a scarlett tanager. It said they have a beautiful song but my visitor did not sing. I saw it go into my next door neighbors birdhouse so I think I'll be seeing a lot of this beautiful bird. Has anyone ever seen one - so pretty.

Re: Beautiful red bird

SilleeMee — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:07:33 GMT

We have tanagers here. They are migratory. The ones I've seen are bright yellow with a flaming red head...beautiful!

Re: Beautiful red bird

vermint — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:15:10 GMT

Lucky you! I've never seen one before. We have a cardinal living in our yard right now that spends the day beating his brains out on our windows. This has been going on for a couple months now. He'll take a break to splash around in the birdbath, then right back at it. My cats are loving the entertainment!

Re: Beautiful red bird

Witchy Woman — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:25:21 GMT

Never seen a bird like you described. How exciting! I always loved seeing a new visitor at my backyard feeders.

Sadly, because of critters destroying every feeder I tried, I had to remove them, so the birds stopped coming

In the winter, I would often see 6 or more Cardinal "couples." It made my heart sing watching those tiny red flickers!

For a few summers, I had Indigo Buntings. They are teal blue and beautiful beyond words!

As much as I would like to attract birds, I just gave up battling the outside forces.

Enjoy your birdies!

Re: Beautiful red bird

StylishLady — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 16:01:21 GMT

We have a mate pair of cardinals that frequent our bird feeders. I recall seeing Scarlet Tanagers back north. The most colorful birds we get during the winter are the Painted Buntings. Enjoy the birds.

Re: Beautiful red bird

IamMrsG — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 20:48:57 GMT

Is this your bird? If so, you're a Lucky Lady and I'm jealous.

Re: Beautiful red bird

151949 — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 23:21:01 GMT

@IamMrsG wrote:
Is this your bird? If so, you're a Lucky Lady and I'm jealous.

No - mine had red wings too , but is just another type of scarlett tanager.

Re: Beautiful red bird

Zhills — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 01:31:06 GMT

Summer tanager?

Common to Pennsylvania

Re: Beautiful red bird

IamMrsG — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 03:31:17 GMT

I am not familiar with Summer Tanager, so Googled it. Here is a snipet I found: "The summer tanager is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the tanager family, it and other members of its genus are now classified in the cardinal family. Wikipedia"

Re: Beautiful red bird

Zhills — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:28:50 GMT

I did notice that it was also referred to as a Northern Cardinal. Didn't know there were different cardinals! The ones here are beautiful. I have had 6 at my feeder at once.

Re: Beautiful red bird

IamMrsG — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:39:09 GMT

@SilleeMee wrote:
We have tanagers here. They are migratory. The ones I've seen are bright yellow with a flaming red head...beautiful!

Oooh, you made me look. Here is what I found:

Western Tanager

Beautiful bird, too!