Summer Tanager

The Summer Tanager, Piranga rubra, is a medium-sized songbird of the Tanager family, Thraupidae.

Adults have stout pointed bills. Adult males are rose red; females are orangish on the underparts and olive on top, with olive-brown wings and tail.

Their breeding habitat is open wooded areas, especially with oaks, across the southern United States. They build a cup nest on a horizontal tree branch.

These birds migrate to Mexico, Central America and northern South America. This tanager is an extremely rare vagrant to western Europe.

These birds are often out of sight, foraging high in trees, sometimes flying out to catch insects in flight. They mainly eat insects, especially bees and wasps, and berries.