Western Tanager
Western Tanager: Medium-sized tanager with brilliant red head, bright yellow body, black back, wings, and tail. Wings have two bars: upper bar is yellow, lower bar is white. Legs and feet are gray. Swift direct flight on rapidly beating wings. It was first recorded on the Lewis and Clark expedition.
● Song:
"che-ree, che-ree, che-weeu, cheweeu", "pit-r-rick"
● Foraging & Feeding:
Western Tanager: Eats insects and berries; forages in trees and shrubs, or catches insects in the air.
● Breeding & nesting:
Western Tanager: Three to five brown marked, blue eggs are laid in a frail, shallow saucer nest woven from rootlets, weed stalks, and bark strips, and saddled on a horizontal branch of a Douglas fir, spruce, pine, or oak. Female incubates eggs for about 13 days.
● Similar species:
Western Tanager: Flame-colored Tanager has dark bill, bolder white wing-bars, and darkly streaked back. Scarlet Tanager (female and juvenile) has olive-colored back and lacks wing-bars.