The Story
This juvenile Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) was at Finca Alejandría at Km 18 above Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia when I photographed it. The Summer Tanager often forages out of sight high in trees, sometimes flying out to catch insects in flight. Finca Alejandría sits in cloud forest at Km 18 on the road from Cali to Buenaventura, and it is an eBird hotspot with more than 340 bird species recorded, about 40 of them hummingbirds. IUCN lists the Summer Tanager as Least Concern, with an increasing population.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600, +1 EV. The finca has run as a birdwatching ecotourism project for more than twenty years, and visitors’ support helps keep its feeders stocked with bananas, sugar and water.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) belongs to the family Cardinalidae (Cardinals and Allies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2025), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List