A touch of colour on a grey day.

Female summer tanager, May 12, 2018, Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.


A rare visitor to our neighbourhood, we normally get scarlet tanagers.
Piranga rubra
The Summer Tanager is a bee and wasp specialist. It catches these insects in flight and kills them by beating them against a branch. Before eating a bee, the tanager rubs it on the branch to remove the stinger. Summer Tanagers eat larvae, too: first they get rid of the adults, and then they tear open the nest to get the grubs.
The oldest Summer Tanager on record was a male, and at least 7 years, 11 months old when he was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in Texas in 1986.
source - https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Summer_Tanager/

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