The residents of a quiet cul-de-sac in a village just outside Bradford in West Yorkshire were sent into a flutter this week by the arrival of a rare bird followed by hundreds of ardent birdwatchers.
A Scarlet Tanager, a bird normally seen on migration at this time of year between northern and eastern North America and Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador in South America, had chosen to rest for a while in a suburban British garden in Shelf.
The young male, that weighed possibly only 30 grams, had been blown off course by the strong prevailing winds following recent storms in the Atlantic.
Such arrivals are rare in the UK – the last Scarlet Tanager to be seen anywhere in this country was 10 years ago and, according to Bird Guides, there have only ever been eight recorded sightings previously.
One was on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides in 2014 and an earlier one in Cornwall. To have made it all the way to Shelf this little bird must have crossed the country unseen at night.
What do Scarlet Tanagers look like?
Female birds and young males such as this one can be quite hard to see, high in the trees in their usual forest habitat, because their plumage is yellowish-green with dark brown-green wings that blends perfectly into their surroundings.
Mature males are much showier birds with blood-red bodies and jet-black wings (above) to attract the attention of females.
The much patchier foliage of a Yorkshire garden put the bird handily in view for the many eagle-eyed birders, some of whom had travelled from as far away as Devon just to catch a glimpse of it.
Despite the name, Scarlet Tanagers are actually classed in the cardinal family of American songbirds, rather than the tanager family.
What do Scarlet Tanagers eat?
Scarlet Tanagers are insect feeders in the main, although they will eat fruit, molluscs and earthworms if their preferred prey is in short supply.
They employ a hunting style called ‘sallying’ - perching on a high branch and darting out to snatch airborne insects and return to the perch. If they catch a bee, wasp or hornet the birds rub the prey’s bodies along tree bark to remove their stings before consuming them.
Like our own Meadow Pipets and Reed Warblers, Scarlet Tanagers’ nests in their US and Canadian breeding grounds are invaded by another bird species seeking a host for their eggs.
In their case it is not Cuckoos forcing the fostering of their young on them, it is Brown-headed Cowbirds that will eject a tanager egg and replace it with one of their own for the parents to raise with their brood.
Sadly, the Yorkshire tanager is unlikely to face such an event in its lifespan, but it has put itself in the UK record books and provided a thrill for very many birders.
Top image: Female and young male Scarlet Tanagers have similar plumage. By Félix Uribe, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81340425
