Flame-colored Tanager - Arizona

Flame-colored Tanager - Miller Canyon, Arizona

Although a Flame-colored Tanager, Piranga bidentata, has been reported yearly for the past few years at the Kubo in Madera Canyon, Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona, it is rarely reported in the Huachucas.  On Saturday, 19 April, a male Flame-colored was reported by Joe Woodley above the Beatty's Guest Ranch and orchard, near the intersection of Miller Canyon Trail and Hunter Canyon Trail.

In the ABA Area, Flame-colored Tanager, was first discovered in Arizona in the Chiricahua Mountains in the South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon, where it remained mid-April to Mid-July 1985.  Since then, both pure and hybrid Flame-colored x Western Tanagers have appeared in the Santa Rita, Huachuca, and Chiricahua Mountains.  Since the first 1996 Flame-colored Tanager report from Big Bend National Park, Texas, there are at least four records from the Trans Pecos, and one from South Padre Island.

Until new editions of filed guides correctly pictured the flaming orange bidentata group of Flame-colored Tanager, the group from West Mexico and the one expected in Southeast Arizona, confusion of this tanager's identity occurred.  The East Mexico and Central American group, sanguinolenta, has males with heads and underparts red to orange-red, and with wingbars often with a reddish wash. 

Keys for separation of young males and females from Western Tanagers and hybrids is discussed in the ABA's A Birder's Guide to Southeastern Arizona by Richard Cachor Taylor.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging It