The Story
This is a Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) that I photographed in Manizales, Caldas, Colombia on June 23, 2017. It breeds across the southern United States and northern Mexico and winters in Mexico, Central America and northern South America. It was formerly placed in the tanager family but is now classified with the cardinals in Cardinalidae. Adult males are rose red, while females are orange-yellow below and olive above. Manizales sits on the steep ridges of Colombia’s Central Cordillera, near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which rises to 5,321 meters.
I photographed it with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 100. IUCN lists the Summer Tanager as Least Concern with an increasing population, and the city of Manizales owns and protects forest fragments such as the Ecoparque Los Yarumos inside its urban area.
©2018 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