Scarlet Tanagers!

The Best Birds EVER!

(Listen to the radio version here.)

Anyone who studies phenology knows that spring migration is predictable and consistent, one year to the next. Rachel Carson said, “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”

But as comfortingly predictable and reliable as migration is, there’s something infinitely thrilling in how those repeated refrains of nature change from year to year. This spring will long be remembered in my mind and heart for the exceptional numbers of Scarlet Tanagers visiting my yard.

It’s not like Scarlet Tanagers are rare in the Upper Midwest. I saw my lifer in 1975, during my first summer of birding, and I’ve seen them every year since. I saw my first one on Peabody Street in 1981, the year we moved in, and I don’t think I’ve missed them in my yard during any year since, though I usually see more in late summer, pigging out on berries in the back of my yard or on Russ’s cherries, than I do in spring.

It’s also not as if this is the first year they’ve visited my feeders. In May 2004, during an extremely cold period, I saw at least two males and, as I recall, at least one female as well, visiting my suet.

Despite poor lighting, a few of the photos I took out my window ended up being my most useful tanager photos for over a decade.

In 2022, one male Scarlet Tanager visited my feeders for a couple of days. I got pictures of him on wires and the feeders …

… and also lovely photos of him or another male in a nearby alley.

But I doubt I’ll ever surpass this year—2024—for both the number of Scarlet Tanagers and how cooperative they were when I was sticking my camera out my home office window clicking away.

From May 15, when I saw my first, I saw or heard at least one Scarlet Tanager every day through May 28. And on a few days right in the middle, I saw 5 or 6—and an astonishing seven all at once—six males and a female—on May 22!

The tanagers were visiting different feeders, mostly eating suet and oranges—it was fun watching them pull out chunks of the orange fruit and pulp. They also went to the jelly I had in small dishes in an oriole feeder.

I don’t think of Scarlet Tanagers as feeder birds, but these seemed totally comfortable with my set up, including at the feeders on my office window. When they were in the spruce or box elder branches right by the window, they usually even stuck around when I opened the window.

Many of the keynotes I’ve done in recent years were about thrilling, sweet, ethereal, or wondrously ridiculous encounters I’ve had with birds over my lifetime—occasions when it occurred to me that this had to be the Best Bird EVER. (To prepare for my talks, I compiled a list, all pre-pandemic, that I put on this page, but so far, only a few are linked to a blog post fleshing out the story.) The Scarlet Tanagers that were so approachable this spring certainly belong on that list of Best Birds EVER!

It felt like such a gift that so many splendid birds, weighing barely an ounce, stopped by Peabody Street on their way to mature forests somewhere beyond here in the Northwoods. They’d already flown a minimum of 3,000 miles from South America. How gratifying it was to know that between my wonderful old trees and my bird feeders, my yard was making their journey a little easier during a hard time. And how infinitely joyful when they not only appeared in my yard but made eye contact with me from just a few feet away, without seeming the least bit afraid of me. What could possibly be more perfect than that?