Hundreds of birders have flocked to a sleepy village in the county of Yorkshire to see to the colourful Scarlet Tanager. <\/p>
The UK\u2019s birdwatching world was a flutter this week with news that a Scarlet Tanager\u00a0(Piranga olivacea<\/em>)\u00a0had appeared on a washing\u00a0line in Yorkshire. <\/strong><\/p> Normally it\u2019s a bird that migrates across the Gulf of Mexico from its summer breeding grounds in northern and eastern\u00a0North America\u00a0to overwinter in\u00a0the montane forests of\u00a0Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador in South America.\u00a0<\/p> To turn up in the northeast of England, this young, first-winter male\u00a0had been\u00a0seriously\u00a0blown\u00a0off course by the\u00a0strong\u00a0prevailing winds\u00a0following recent storms in the Atlantic.\u00a0<\/p> Such events are not unknown, but they are rare \u2013 the last Scarlet Tanager to be seen anywhere in the UK was 10 years ago and there have only ever been eight recorded sightings in the country.\u00a0<\/p> Previous\u00a0arrivals have been on the eastern side of the country, on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides<\/a>, in Ireland\u00a0and in Cornwall<\/a>. To have made it all the\u00a0way to the village of Shelf\u00a0on the edge of Bradford\u00a0in Yorkshire<\/a> this little bird, weighing only\u00a0around 30\u00a0grams, must have crossed the country unseen at night.<\/p> Female birds and\u00a0juveniles\u00a0such as this one\u00a0are\u00a0normally hard to spot in their\u00a0home range,\u00a0as their plumage is yellowish-green with dark brown-green wings.<\/p> Mature males are the showy birds with blood-red bodies and jet-black wings (see above).\u00a0In this bird\u2019s case, the less dense foliage of a cul-de-sac garden provided little cover to hide\u00a0it\u00a0from the gaze of dozens of eagle-eyed birders who had travelled long distances to add it to their UK lists.<\/p> Scarlet Tanagers are somewhat mis-named. The species was originally placed in the\u00a0tanager family of American\u00a0songbirds\u00a0but it was recently reclassified to be a member of the\u00a0cardinal group. In their winter habitat they travel in mixed\u00a0foraging\u00a0flocks\u00a0with flycatchers, antbirds and other species of tanagers.\u00a0<\/p>
What do Scarlet Tanagers look like?<\/strong><\/h2>
What do Scarlet Tanagers eat and how do they hunt?<\/strong><\/h2>