If you want to succeed in life…learn how to do a variety of things well things other people can’t or won’t do, be willing to try new things, don’t get stuck in a rut. We all knew a kid in school like this not the biggest or strongest or smartest kid but there was something…something deep-down in that kid’s eyes (boy or girl) that made us turn and slowly back away. But I noticed that Palmy…Palmy with those black shark-like eyes, would invariably stand up to bigger birds…like the Clay-colored Thrushes, the Saltators, and even the Woodpeckers Palmy would just stare down those bigger birds and continue dining on banana. Bigger birds intimidate and chase off smaller birds. Usually this hierarchy is simply based upon size. Species-A chases off Species-B and is then chased off by yet another, Species-C. Back when we all had bird feeders and bird feeder contests I noticed there was a distinct bird feeder hierarchy. I start off with Palmy for this reason I consider the Palm Tanager to be ‘King of the Tanagers’ and I’ll tell you why. Appropriately named, the Palm Tanager seems to prefer hanging out in palm trees, usually up rather high. The Palm Tanager looks quite similar to our Blue-Gray Tanager but is colored a soft, dusty olive green with a dark patch on the primary wing. One of our less brightly-colored Tanagers is the Palm Tanager. Here then are my thoughts on a few of our southern zone Tanager species. I even named my entire property after Tanagers, using the made up name ‘EL TANGARAL’ which means, (because I say so), the place of Tanagers or more specifically a menagerie of Tanagers.įYI: If you’re interested in some truly fantastic musings and art on Tanagers, I recommend you find a copy of ‘The Life of the Tanager’ by the speedy and powerful Alexander Skutch (also known as the Audubon of Central America). Those comments are directed at Tanagers my friend. ‘Oh my god! That bird on your feeder…it must have seven different colors! What is it?’ ‘Oooohhh, what’s that black and red bird?’ I still have a dusty 35 millimeter slide of that Scarlet-rump somewhere.Īnd now, when your family, your friends come down to visit. How many of us, during that first trip to Costa Rica, can remember our first encounter with a Scarlet-rumped (Cherrie’s/Passerini’s) Tanager? Remember the thrill? My first spot came in 1979 in a sleepy little two-hostel town called Manuel Antonio. But don’t get me wrong…we grizzled birders also absolutely get off on counting wing bars on the drabbest of our feathered friends. Some folks even call Tanagers ‘the butterflies of the bird world’. It’s just human nature isn’t it, to like bright shiny things. It’s true even we grizzled, hard-nosed, wing-bar counting, crawling through the weeds birders enjoy watching pretty birds more than we enjoy watching plain birds.
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