Greetings once again from the road. I have to say, birding wise things are going quite well on our trip to the northwest. 54 species have been added to my annual count and with the 3 lifers found today that number includes a total of 13 first timers. Not too shabby and we are not even a third of the way through the excursion. We are officially at the site of the Canine Performance Events Agility Nationals (outside Seattle/Tacoma) and time for Ruger and Linda to take to the ring. The birding will take a back seat for a few days while attention shifts to the obstacle course. Once that is over we’ll be focused back on our feathered friends…speaking of which, let’s get you to today’s feature.
Continuing with the theme, hit the jump to read more about this southwestern specialty.
Not to slight Brad as I had planned to feature another of his adventures to close out the month, but I ended up having some extra time and assuming I’ll need his help even more in the coming month – banking posts when I can. This also gives me a chance to leverage this month’s theme of “May I have another chance” to bring you another one of my sub-par executions. Trust me, you deserve better – heavy handed work in the digital darkroom and the smaller image size makes these shots look way better than they really are.
Unless you happen to live in Arizona or New Mexico, you may not be familiar with this particular bird. With that said, I will go out on a thick limb and guarantee you have seen members in its family. This bird is known as the Hepatic Tanager – one of the worst named birds out there. Similar to the previous post on the Plumbeous Vireo (link here), I had to climb up to the top shelf in the library, pull down the dictionary (again), thumb to the ‘H’s only to scratch my head – “Why is this bird named after the liver?“. When you look at this bird do you immediately think of our largest organ responsible for producing bile for digestion and detoxifying our blood? It has other roles, but you get my point. So now I have to dig deeper and the best I can tell is they consider the deeper red hues of this species to be similarly colored to the liver. I can see it now – hmmm, we have the Scarlet, the Summer, the Western, the Flame-Colored (will get to this one in a bit)…I know, we shall call it liver and all in the room rejoiced.
To be honest, I do think it is the least appealing of the Tanagers, but that is less of this bird’s fault and more of the others being overly stunning. To steal and tweak a line from Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All Tanagers are beautiful, but some Tanagers are more beautiful than others“.
The Hepatic name was not the only Rabbit hole I went down researching for this post – and they wonder why we barely manage to get 6 posts out a month hehehehe. Quiz time. True or False, the Hepatic Tanager (and the 4 other Tanagers mentioned earlier) are in the same family as the 300+ Tanager species found in Central and South America? If you responded with “False“, then I bow to your birding knowledge or you know how this game is played and picked the non-obvious answer. The North American Tanagers are unrelated to those other similarly named species and are cataloged in the family Cardinalidae – which is why I was confident you were familiar with at least one of its other family members. With the tinning of this specimen, I now have checked off 13 of the 15 members of this family. All I have left is the Varied Bunting and the Flame-Colored Tanager. I will be trying hard to close that gap on our return leg of our current trip – they both have very small footprints in southern Arizona.
Quick digression – while trying to figure out the odd family placement of the US Tanagers I noticed something else that was strange and didn’t know. The Cardinalidae family also has the Grosbeaks in it – Rose-Breasted, Black-Headed and Blue. Just so happens I am currently hunting the Evening Grosbeak up here in the northwest and it wasn’t listed – all I needed, another time gobbling hole. Since this is a bit off topic, I’ll just tell you I found it in the Fringillidae famly along with the Pine Grosbeak (forgot about that one), a bunch of Hawaiian birds, Crossbills and Finches. These are the name confusions we need to be fixing.
Found the ladder, now out of the research holes – sorry about that. This particular specimen was found while visiting Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon. Primarily known for its Hummingbird feeders, we managed to find several other +1s hanging about. This is an incredible place to bird and HIGHLY recommend checking it out. Parking is limited so you might have to walk a bit to get to the site depending on how busy it is. Liver-dude made only a brief appearance giving me less than 5 minutes in total owing to the rushed shots.
Unfortunately, there isn’t really a lot I can add about this particular Tanager. Even Cornell commented there has not been a lot of studies on this species – can’t blame them, would you want to study the Tanager with Scarlet in the name or Liver?
In absence of interesting tidbits to take away from today’s featured feathered friend, I am going to give you a quick video of another lifer we managed to get on top of Mt Rainier a few days ago. It was such an amazing experience I didn’t want you to have to wait until we got back and process the shots to enjoy it…okay, okay, more like a year at the rate I have been going. So, here is our latest find, the Sooty Grouse! (If the embedded link does not play in your browser, here is the direct link here)
What an amazing experience for a lifer!
Take care everyone, with the way the schedule is going I’ll likely not be seeing you again until we turn the page to June. Until then, happy birding!
Wildlife Intrigued 
The H. Tanager has a bit of a hangdog look; perhaps it’s from you saying it is the least appealing of the tanagers. The Hepaticae are a bit dull, but he’s still a handsome bird. One of my ditch bank buddies who lives a half mile north of me said he’s been getting Scarlet Tanagers at his bird feeder. The Sooty Grouse suited himself paying little attention to the cinematographer.
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Trust me, I thought long and hard about how to say that without offending the Tanager lineage – in my defense, I didn’t say it was ugly or anything like that, just …less beautiful. Scarlets at the feeder are a real treat – so brilliant and those black wings really accentuate their coloring. I could not believe how accommodating that Grouse was to the camera – I kept turning to Linda and mouthing “Can you believe this is a lifer!?!“. For a bird that should be acting more like a Pheasant or a Quail it was certainly out and proud ha. I forgot to give you credit for all the Hepatic Tanager posts you made before me!
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Sometimes birds just don’t find you to be a threat. That was the way the last Killdeer I photographed was. It just ran up to within feet of us.
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Wonderful capture! This Piranga orangé (the French got this one right!) is a wonderful find. I was right there, at the Lodge, in mid-April, but didn’t see this ray of sunshine.
And I can’t believe your grouse – that was definately worth stopping the presses to post! Congrats on both!
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Yep, the French nailed it! I feel bad you didn’t get a chance to see one at Rita’s. As mentioned, it didn’t hang around long, but you couldn’t miss its arrival. Please tell me you at least got the Arizona Woodpecker – you can’t leave AZ without it! Hopefully you went up in the Madera Canyon trails – that has become one of my treasured experiences and put Green Valley back on the map as possible places to move to – Texas is still my wife’s favorite so that is still the top choice. I could walk those trails every day if I had the chance – admittedly, a good workout, the trail on the left was work ha – worth it though as I tinned the Trogon while up there. Again, can’t wait to hear about your latest adventures.
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No luck on the Arizona Woodpecker, but I did get the Acorn Woodpecker, a new bird for me 🙂 Before we left, I reviewed your lists of places and sightings in Arizona, and used that to create my detailed itinerary. We saw lots more than I anticipated… but you’ll have to be patient. I have roughly 6 – 8 posts in the queue before Arizona!
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Well, maybe if folk were a bit more excited about this tanager it might perk up and seem “brighter”. Not his fault some daft human decided to compare it to a human liver. Wonder if those birder were doctors. Had they seen a liver and this is what came to mind? Kind of lazy don’t ya think.
Nice pics though Brian.
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All I could think of was the “you lily-livered bow-legged varmit” jokes that must have been hurled at it in bird school. I do feel sorry for it as it definitely deserves a better name than it was bestowed. Definitely the work of a lazy bird discoverer. Took kind on the quality of the pics Jerry – with your photography pedigree, you deserved a better execution – next time I’ll crisp up the shots, I promise! Take care Jerry and thanks again for coming by.
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You are kind Brian. I’ve just had the opportunity to “practice” more during my career. The photos look fine. One can only do what one can do in some situations. Had a few of those in my past life.
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I guess that Grouse had been reading your posts and seeing you moan about the quality of your images and felt sorry for you. I hope you didn’t mes these up.
Like the Tanager and names never bother me.
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This tanager beautiful! I was surprised to see it clinging to a vertical surface like a woodpecker or nuthatch… but maybe that’s something all tanagers do? It’s a species I know very little about. I can’t decide whether the orange feathers are -really- ten times fluffier than the tan ones, or its an illusion, but the tan pirate’s mask and pulled-back waist-coat give him a jaunty look and I agree: he’s neither jaundiced nor liver-colored. Maybe the character who named him was referring to his own condition that day… they did live in a medically challenging time. Ohhhh, that grouse! What a fabulous sighting -and capture! It paraded for you!
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Kudos on adding to your life list! As we all know, those additions become increasingly scarce the more we add to that list.
Sounds like your northwestern adventures are pretty exciting. I mean, I’m here in Florida dealing with my own hepatic situation, but it doesn’t compare with the excitement of seeing (AND photographing!) a new tanager. Granted, it’s always an adventure when I try my hand at a dinner of liver and onions, which will eventually require the intervention of The Boss, but it will be pretty good with some greens and cornbread (after she finishes with it).
That naming thing. All I can say is – taxonomists simply must have a great, if subtle, sense of humor, based on the hysterical — err, historical — records. My cynical side envisions alcohol being involved.
Anyhow, nice work on the exploration, the findings, the research and escaping yet another rabbit hole.
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Yes, it’s true the hepatic tanagers don’t have the color intensity of most other tanagers, but I think it’s a great find and you have great photos here, Brian. Also enjoyed the sooty grouse video. Sounds like you’re having a great time–cheers!
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Nicely captured. A bit more subtle in coloring to be sure, but still a good find. No worries, save the stories for when Jan and I are on assignment later this year.
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