A continuing series
Many people have never heard of the birds called tanagers and upon first hearing the word, they think you said “teenager.” So our common red and black bird that sings in the treetops around here during the summer becomes a “scarlet teenager” and everyone gets confused.
The name tanager comes from an old name the Tupi, indigenous people who lived in what is now the southeast coast of Brazil, used for some of these birds. It became “tangara” in Portuguese and then Tanagara in Latin, which was the language of science in the 16th and 17th centuries, and then into English as “tanager.”
Tanagers live in the Western Hemisphere and, just like hummingbirds, they are exclusive to the Americas.
Tanagers are an interesting, diverse and often colorful group of birds. How diverse has become clear only since DNA analysis was invented. Ornithologists have learned that what we thought of as similar birds (size, bill-shape, lifestyle, food preferences, etc.) with a close common ancestry are actually not closely related at all. For example, our scarlet and summer tanagers are more closely related to cardinals and sparrows than they are to most of the tropical species of tanager.
But leaving aside the fascinating genealogy, the tropical tanagers and their allied groups are beautiful and fascinating to observe.
Although their feathers aren’t iridescent like hummingbirds, some of them are stunningly colored. Even so, it is amazing how well even these bright colors can blend into the leaves of a tree. There are some rather dull and plain-colored tanagers, but a lot are bright and colorful and when you are lucky enough to see them sit still for a minute, they are wonderful to photograph.
The tanagers are omnivorous and their diet depends on what’s available. They like the small fruits of many different trees and shrubs, but they eat many insects, too. Some like to sip nectar from flowers and some even eat flowers. One group of tanager cousins called flower-piercers have little hooks at the tips of their beaks, which they use to puncture flowers to get nectar out of the flower tubes, which are too long for them to get in a “legitimate” way and pollinate the flower as the plant would prefer.
I hope you enjoy these beauties.
Mike Slater is a member of the Mengel Natural History Society of Berks County and the Muhlenberg Botanic Society of Lancaster. He lives in Brecknock Township. Reach him at paplantings@gmail.com.
