{"id":173,"date":"2008-05-14T22:48:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2008-05-14T22:48:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T03:48:00","slug":"twilight-tanagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"Twilight Tanagers"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past month or so, one time of day when I can be sure of hearing both Summer and Scarlet Tanagers is early twilight. Not long after sunset, when light is just beginning to fade, their calls travel through the darkening woods, and sometimes through the trees around us. I can trace where they go by the calls \u2013 the soft, percussive pik-a-tuk, pik-a-tuk<\/span> of the Summer Tanager, the emphatic CHIK-brrrrr, CHIK-brrrrr<\/span> of the Scarlet. The Scarlet\u2019s call is almost electric. I feel<\/span> it as much as hear it. <\/p>\n

The Summer Tanagers seem casual in their pattern of movement, as if they\u2019re just out for an evening stroll through the woods, while the Scarlet Tanagers seem to follow a more predictable path each evening, up and down the creek, and then back toward the east, and up the hill toward our house, sometimes coming quite close. I should add that I don\u2019t listen for them every evening and can\u2019t say anything definitive about their movements \u2013 these are just my casual impressions. <\/p>\n

Both Scarlet and Summer Tanagers arrived in mid April and have been singing in the woods around our house off and on all day since then, especially in the early mornings, but we seldom see them. This is unusual for the Summer Tanagers. In previous years, a pair has been a regular presence around the house \u2013 the all-red male and deep-yellow female, both with their thick bills, slightly crested heads, and somewhat furtive postures. A Summer Tanager\u2019s song was one of the first I heard every morning, usually coming from a perch in the top of one of the trees just outside my bedroom window. <\/p>\n

Scarlet Tanagers, on the other hand, have always been more secretive, more often heard than seen, and whenever I catch a glimpse of the male\u2019s flamboyant scarlet and black, or the female\u2019s olive-yellow with ash-brown wings, it seems like something special. This year, however, I\u2019m just about as excited whenever I see a Summer Tanager, since they\u2019ve been so much less common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past month or so, one time of day when I can be sure of hearing both Summer and Scarlet Tanagers is early twilight. Not long after sunset, when light is just beginning to fade, their calls travel through the darkening woods, and sometimes through the trees around us. I can trace where they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}