Red Hills "Hepatic Tanager"

[Mark Stackhouse <westwings at sisna dot com>]

Regarding the Hepatic Tanager reported seen at the Red Hills Golf Course
in St. George on Friday, I also saw what I assume is the same bird at
that location with my tour group on Thursday afternoon. My initial
impression was that the bird was a Hepatic Tanager; it had a dark bill
and rather dusky wings and tail. I was convinced enough that I ran off
to our van to get my camera. However, I was bothered by the fact that
the bird did NOT have dusky or grayish auriculars, as it should if it
were a Hepatic Tanager. As I was running, I had a second thought as
well, that hadn't occurred to me before (call it an epiphany if you
will) that the bird was giving a Summer Tanager call. The calls of these
two species are not very similar. When I got to the van, I looked in a
few books to be sure, and found that western races of Summer Tanager can
have dark bills (see Sibley, for example) but that the dark auriculars
are found in all races of Hepatic. And then there was, of course, still
the issue of the call . . .

I returned to my group without my camera, having concluded that the bird
could only be a Summer Tanager with a dark bill.

Close, but no state-first.

Good birding!

Mark

Mark Stackhouse
Westwings, Inc.
1432 Downington Ave.
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
tel./fax. (801) 487-9453
westwings@sisna.com


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