The Story
I photographed this Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) at the Hotel Campestre Resguardos de Paz, near El Paujil, Caquetá, Colombia, in February 2020. It breeds across the southern United States and northern Mexico and spends the winter from Mexico to northern South America. Although it was long called a tanager, it is now placed in the cardinal family. It mainly eats insects, often catching them in flight, and adds fruit to its diet. Its song is similar enough to an American Robin’s that beginners sometimes mix them up.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400. Across its range, IUCN lists the Summer Tanager as Least Concern, and its numbers appear to be growing.
©2020 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