Piranga olivacea
Order Passeriformes
Family Cardinalidae
♂ Adult male.— Entire body bright scarlet; wings and tail black.
♀ Adult female.— Upper parts greenish; wings and tail brown; under parts yellowish.
♂ Adult male in autumn.— Like the female, but wings and tail black.
Immature.— Like the female, but male has black wing coverts.
Nest, in twigs, loosely built, on a limb, seven to twenty feet up.
Eggs, bluish, with reddish-brown markings.
The Scarlet Tanager is a summer resident throughout New England and New York, common in southern New England, especially in oak and chestnut woods, rarer in the evergreen forests of northern New York and New England. It arrives early in May, and is occasionally seen in September. The Tanager is chiefly a bird of the forest trees, though it not infrequently nests about houses in wellwooded towns or villages. It is not a very active bird, and unless its note attracts attention, it escapes observation to such a degree that it is commonly considered rare.
Its song, rhythmical, hoarse, and not long sustained, suggests a Robin with a cold. Occasionally, in the height of the breeding season, it is a prolonged and sweet performance. Both sexes have a characteristic call-note, chip-churr, the last note lower. The female can hardly be confused with anything else; it is hard, however, to think of a yellowish bird, with greenish upper parts, as a Scarlet Tanager.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)
The American Ornithological Society reassigned the Scarlet Tanager and other Piranga birds to the Cardinal family in 2009. Hoffmann had them in the family Tanagridae.