Summer Tanager
Piranga rubra · Songbirds
Summer Tanager, second-year male
Green-Wood Cemetery, 17 May 2026
A Summer Tanager at Green-Wood in May, a bird well outside its usual range rather than a routine sighting. Summer Tanagers breed mainly across the south-eastern United States in oak and pine woodland, and are a genuine rarity this far north and east in spring.
A blotchy mix of red and yellow-green rather than the solid brick-red of a full adult male: very likely a second-year bird still moulting out of its first-year yellow-green into adult red, a patchy transitional look sometimes nicknamed "cocktail" plumage. Unlike the similar Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanagers never show black wings at any age, which is what points to this species rather than a moulting Scarlet.
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