Breakfast with a Tanager

A Young Bird Reveals Volumes About Feeding Niche                    3 August 2012

Scarlet Tanagers are tropical birds, spending most of their lives there.  But they are hatched in the temperate portions of eastern North America, and the beginnings of a journey to the tropics are hinged on the successful exploration of a feeding niche in northern climates.  This Scarlet Tanager was likely a Wisconsin nestling just a few weeks ago, and it is on its way to Central America. 

I shared my breakfast with the tanager this morning.  This, of course, requires clarification.  I did not share food with the bird, and we did, in fact, have different feeding niches to occupy.  But the simple fact remains that, while I was perched on my deck, the young tanager was perched in an elm at the corner of the deck.  I got a front row seat into this bird’s search for food while I enjoyed some good grains.  I am glad I didn’t eat what the tanager found.   

The tanager seemed obsessed with a strategy of staring obliquely along the decurved leaves of the elm boughs.  If you haven’t peeked ahead at the images, perhaps you can spot the bird’s meal before it does.  The meal is clearly visible in one of these images!   A sharp eye is part of the tanager’s exploration of leaves for insect prey.   

The beak of a tanager is a piece to the puzzle, defining an opportunistic life building a diet rich in insects and fruits.

August has arrived, and tropical species of birds have already begun their southerly waves of migration.  Despite the sometimes oppressive heat of the “dog days” of summer, a hint of autumn is in the air in the changing hues of tree leaves, in the ripening of late berries, and on the bustling wings of chatty fledglings and migratory birds.  Everywhere, food abounds!

These images were made in lightly overcast, even light with a 300mm lens (Canon f4, IS) and a Canon 40D.   I shot at ISO 200 and ISO 400 to keep shutter speeds high.  The young bird was somewhat tame.  A fluffy white line along the bird’s wing left some doubt as to the bird’s identity, so I crept back into the house to get the camera.  My initial efforts were to simply document a “Western Tanager” in Wisconsin.  As it turned out, the bird was a Scarlet Tanager common to my locale, but the role of the camera quickly changed from species documentary  to behavioral documentary.