Rufous face, yellow body, white-marked black wings. Photo to the right is a male.
The Western tanager eats primarily insects. At feeders it prefers dried fruit,
cut oranges, and sugar-water. It will bathe in birdbaths. Its nest is a mass of
twigs and roots, lined with hair, usually located in a branch fork near the tip.
Its call is pit-ic, sometimes followed by
chert-it.
In Keresan culture this is the bird associated with NORTH, which is the yellow
direction.
Sighted at the
Ortiz Mountains Educational Preserve (an isolated high mountain group --
7,000 to 9,000 feet elevation -- eight miles south of Cerrillos.)
Western tanager - May '02
Hepatic Tanager, Western Tanager - as of '04
This website is maintained by the Cerrillos
Hills Park Coalition
and is dedicated to the creation, enhancement and stewardship
of an historical, recreational, and cultural open space in
the
Cerrillos Hills, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, USA
