The western tanager ( Piranga ludoviciana) is a striking medium-sized American songbird known for its vibrant plumage and adaptable diet. This article delves into the dietary habits of the western tanager, exploring what it eats throughout the year and how its feeding strategies contribute to its survival and ecological role. Formerly placed in the tanager family (Thraupidae), other members of its genus and it are classified in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). The western tanager lives in and migrates through at least 14 countries, such as Canada, the United States, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
Identification and Habitat
Adult Western tanagers have pale, stout pointed bills, yellow underparts, and light wing bars. The adult male is a showy yellow and black bird with a red head. A clear look at a male Western Tanager is like looking at a flame: an orange-red head, brilliant yellow body, and coal-black wings, back and tail. The back, scapulars, wings, and tail are black. Rump, uppertail-coverts, hindneck, and underparts are bright yellow. Females and immatures are a somewhat dimmer yellow-green and blackish. Adult female has olive-green upperparts becoming grayish on back and scapular and yellowish on rump and uppertail-coverts. Her underparts vary from bright yellow to grayish white with yellow. Wings are grayish with 2 yellowish-white wing bars. In brighter females the anterior portion of the head may be tinged with red (Hudon 1999).
These birds live in open woodlands all over the West, particularly among evergreens, where they often stay hidden in the canopy. Favors open woodlands, but occasionally extends into fairly dense forests. They breed along the western coast of North America from southeastern Alaska south to northern Baja California, Mexico. Their range extends east to western Texas and north through central New Mexico, central Colorado, extreme northwest Nebraska, and areas of western South Dakota to southern Northwest Territories, Canada. You can find them in the Western United States and Northwestern Canada during the warmer months and in Central to Southern Mexico and Central America during the winter.
During the breeding season, Western tanagers inhabit coniferous forests and mixed woodlands. They breed in open woodlands, primarily in Douglas-fir and Ponderosa-pine trees. They are common in forest openings, and they seem most at home in the dry Douglas-fir forests. You may occasionally find them in aspen forests, wetlands, forest edges, parks, gardens, and burns. During migration, Western Tanagers frequent a wide variety of forest, woodland, scrub, and partly open habitats as well as human-made environments such as orchards, parks, gardens, and suburban areas. During migration, they stop in a wide range of habitats, like urban areas, backyards, parks, forests, and woodlands. Their winter habitat in Middle America is generally in pine-oak woodland and forest edge. During the winder, also inhabit forests and woodlands.
General Foraging Behavior
Western tanagers are generally solitary birds. They spend time in pairs during the breeding season and may also migrate in groups of up to 30 birds. These birds are diurnal spending the day foraging in forest canopies. They spend many days slowly moving along branches and shrubs, looking for food. To find them, listen for their hoarse songs and chuckling calls. The Western Tanager feeds predominantly on insects during the breeding season, but it also incorporates fruits and berries in its diet whenever it can. At other times of the year, fruits and berries constitute a substantial portion of the diet.
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They spend much of their time picking food from branches and foliage in shrubs or at the tops of trees. They obtain their food by foliage gleaning and hawking. Treetop-foragers, Western Tanagers glean food from foliage and branches, and fly out to catch aerial prey. Although they are brightly colored, they are often inconspicuous and difficult to observe.
The Western Tanager forages mostly in tops of trees. Usually feeds deliberately, peering about slowly for insects in foliage. Also flies out to catch insects in mid-air. Western Tanagers spend most of their time quietly, methodically plucking food from twigs, branches, flowers, and foliage in the upper portions of forest trees and shrubs. They also scan for insects, perching motionless except for side-to-side movements of the head before sallying out flycatcher-fashion to nab prey on the wing.
Seasonal Diet Variations
The western tanager's diet varies significantly depending on the season, reflecting the availability of different food sources in its breeding and wintering grounds. Western tanagers are carnivores (insectivores) and herbivores (frugivores).
Breeding Season Diet
During the nesting season, Western tanagers eat primarily insects such as wasps and ants, click beetles and wood borers, true bugs, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. Although Western Tanagers are adapted for eating fruit, they eat mostly insects during the breeding season. Western tanagers primarily eat insects, such as bees, wasps, grasshoppers, ants, beetles, cicadas, stinkbugs, and termites.
Fall and Winter Diet
During the fall and winter, when insects are no longer abundant, they will eat wild cherries, elderberries, mulberries, blackberries, buds, and seeds. They also eat fruit, especially during fall and winter, when it may dominate the diet. Fruits eaten include hawthorn, wild cherries, elderberries, blackberries, mulberries, and serviceberries. Buds, for example those of greasewood bushes, occasionally add variety. Winter stragglers have been seen eating seeds at feeders.
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Specific Food Items
A detailed look at the different food items consumed by the western tanager reveals its opportunistic and adaptable feeding habits.
Insects
Western Tanagers primarily eat insects, such as bees, wasps, grasshoppers, ants, beetles, cicadas, stinkbugs, and termites. They feed mainly on insects, including wasps, bees, ants, beetles, grasshoppers, termites, cicadas. During breeding season, Western Tanagers eat mostly insects-especially wasps, ants, termites, stinkbugs, cicadas, beetles, grasshoppers, crane flies, dragonflies, caterpillars, scale insects, and sawflies.
Fruits and Berries
They will eat wild cherries, elderberries, mulberries, blackberries, and serviceberries. During the fall and winter, it adds fruits and seeds to its diet. During winter, they eat many fruits and berries.
Other Food Sources
Occasionally add variety eating buds, for example those of greasewood bushes.
Drinking Habits
The text does not specify drinking habits.
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Nestling Diet
Both parents bring food for the nestlings. Both parents share the feeding duties of their nestlings. The chicks are fed by both parents, and typically fledge 11 to 15 days after hatching and have been observed with the parents at least 2 weeks after fledging. For nestlings the adults will bring insects.
How Diet Influences Plumage
Unlike the Scarlet ( Piranga olivacea), Summer (P. rubra), and Hepatic (P. flava) tanagers, which deposit red 4-oxo-carotenoids in their plumages, the male Western Tanager deposits rhodoxanthin, a rare plumage pigment, in its red feathers. The species must rely on an external source of this pigment, unlike the aforementioned species, which produce red pigments from dietary yellow pigments. Most birds with red plumage, like the Summer Tanager, owe their color to carotenoid pigments obtained from the birds' diet. However, the red face and head of the male Western Tanager are caused by a carotenoid pigment rarely found in birds, called rhodoxanthin. Rhodoxanthin is found in conifer buds, ferns, and some introduced honeysuckle species. The Western Tanager doesn't eat these things directly, but rather obtains the pigment they contain indirectly by eating insects that feed on conifers.
Conservation Status and Diet
The IUCN lists the western tanager as LC or “least concern.” Due to its extensive range and large, increasing population, this species does not meet the thresholds for “threatened” status. While they are not experiencing any significant ongoing threats, they are still vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A stable and varied food supply contributes to the overall health and resilience of the species.
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