06/04/2026
It's a bad day to be a bee if a Summer Tanager is around. 🐝🐦
Summer Tanagers specialize on bees and wasps in both their breeding and wintering ranges. These birds forage mainly in the tops of trees typically capturing flying insects in the air before carrying their prey back to a branch and beating it repeatedly against a perch to remove the stinger before eating it.
But their love for insects does not stop there. They also eat other aerial and terrestrial invertebrates such as spiders, cicadas, beetles, ants, termites, grasshoppers, flies, and moths. Sometimes, they will use their large beak to break into and raid a wasp nest before eating the larvae inside.
These birds also love fruits such as mulberries, blackberries, pokeweed, citrus, and bananas. These crucial meals help them build muscle and fat reserves prior to migrating. Their name Summer Tanager is a based on an old nickname for this tanager “summer redbird”. This distinguished this summer-resident species from the “winter redbird” (the Northern Cardinal), a close relative, which is present year-round.
Depending on the area, Summer Tanagers are much scarcer than Scarlet Tanagers, as they prefer mature stands of oak-hickory forests (like Blacklick Woods). While they tend to stay high in the treetops, the Canopy Walk has allowed many people to see these beautiful birds so far this spring and many photographers to get great pictures of them (like Aaron's pictures below!). While out and about, listen for a lazy but soft and sweet American Robin song and look up high for a slow moving, big-beaked red bird.
📷: Aaron Roland
