Summer Tanager

How to find it

In Guanacaste, look around fruiting trees such as fig or mango. An active army ant swarm in the dry season can bring several tanagers at once. Check forest edges, gardens and open woodland, where it forages in the trees. Early morning is a good time because the birds are most active in the cooler hours. Guided canopy walks in lowland forest in the wintering period give a chance to see it move through the treetops.

How to recognise it

The adult male is entirely rosy red with a pale, thick bill.

Males stay red through the winter and do not change plumage.

The female is olive above and yellowish olive below, with ochre-tinted underparts. Her undertail is brighter orange-yellow, and her bill is pale grey to horn-coloured.

Immature males look like females, then become a patchwork of red, olive and yellow as they reach adult colour. A blotchy bird in winter may be a young male on his way to full red.

What it sounds like

Recording: dylancamachoguzman10, CC0 1.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

In winter the Summer Tanager is usually alone, but it often joins mixed flocks of other tanagers and warblers. It eats many kinds of fruit and catches insects in flight. It also tears open wasp and stingless bee nests to eat the larvae and pupae, and it visits banana feeders. It follows army ant swarms too, and an active swarm in the dry season can bring several tanagers. Range-wide, it mostly forages in treetops and often hunts from a perch with short sallies after flying insects.

Where it lives

Most birds are in the lowlands of both slopes. Numbers drop with altitude, but some birds reach up to about 2500 m. It uses the canopy and edges of evergreen and deciduous forest, partly cleared land with tall second growth, garden trees and pastures. Guanacaste dry forest is described as the most reliable region, while it is less common on the Osa Peninsula and in the Central Valley foothills. It is still listed among birds of shaded gardens and green patches in the Central Valley, and it is noted in San Carlos in the Zona Norte.

When to see it

It is common from mid September to mid or late April, as a migrant and winter resident. A lowland rainforest canopy records it from October to April.

Similar birds

The Summer Tanager has a pale horn-coloured bill, while the Hepatic Tanager has a dark bill, and the bill is the most reliable feature for separating the two. The female has paler wings than the female Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), which is also a migrant to Costa Rica. The Scarlet Tanager's song is a little hoarser.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The official list gives Tangara Veranera as the main Spanish name, with the local names Cardenal Veranero, Pan de Achiote and Sangre Toro. Pan de Achiote refers to its colour. Plain Cardenal is also used for other red tanagers, so it can cause mix-ups.

Status and conservation

The official Costa Rican list marks it as M, a migrant, and in Costa Rica it is a non-breeding winter visitor.

Photography tips

Watch the upper canopy, where it can be seen carrying prey to a perch. Range-wide, it often hunts from a perch with short sallies, so wait near an open treetop perch. Early morning light and cooler hours find it most active.