Sometimes a species just stops you in your tracks. So it was with a superlative, breeding-plumaged, male Scarlet Tanager today at Jamaica Bay. Now Scarlet Tanagers are always a gorgeous bird, and if you walk by a breeding-plumaged male without looking not only are your credentials as a birder at stake but so are your credentials as a human being. It should not be possible for something to be so impossibly red, so red that on an overcast day it still looks like the sun is shining full force. The particular Scarlet Tanager that caused my jaw to hit the ground today was found foraging in small trees on the west side of the West Pond at Jamaica Bay. And when I say small trees I am talking about trees that topped out at fifteen feet. And the trees weren’t far off the trail. And the bird allowed me to collect my jaw from the ground, get my camera hooked up to the scope, and get focused and snap shot after shot. And, well, wow.
I really don’t have anything more to add to this post so I’ll just end it here…hope you get a look this good at a bird as beautiful soon!
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This post has been sumitted to Bird Photography Weekly #39 and Digiscoping Today Week 3. Go check them out!
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If you liked these images make sure to head on over to 10,000 Clicks, the 10,000 Birds photo-galleries page, and see our growing collection of galleries.
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This post was originally published on 24 May 2009, but we hate to keep posts this good buried in the archives!
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Oh. My. Gawd.
How close were you? What equipment do you use?
I bow to you and these amazing images.
What a spectacular bird. Pictures aren’t too shabby either.
Dad
Satisfying indeed. Great shots. Great bird.
I had the exact same reaction to the Scarlet Tanager I spied over my head last Wednesday morning at Six Mile Run, NJ. Food for the soul, a vision that carried me through the day.
Spectacular bird…spectacular photos!!!
Thankyou Corey for these photographs. What a magnificent species. Brenton.
Oh my, sometimes words are just inadequate, but I wanted you to know I viewed with a dropped jaw, too.
Gosh, I think I need to go outside and look at a cleansing Acrocephalus warbler after this one…
Wow…wow…and Wow! This guy would stop me in my tracks too (as well as stop my heart for a few beats). Spectacular photographs and lucky you for finding him in trees that topped at 15’….I normally see them in the canopy of tall trees.
WOW!
Jochen, if you need some colour-cleansing then you should pop over to my place this afternoon. I have been staring down at my digiscoping setup trying to encourage it to squeeze some colour out of an ortolan bunting. not having much success. funny, in the book, they look practically bright. but at least they have a nice bunting-like song 😉
Corey, isn’t it wonderful the joy pretty birdies can give us. I am sure you had a ball photographing this one!
We had a nesting pair a few years ago. What a thrill it was to see this beautiful bird. I’ve been keeping my eye peeled ever since.
Well I remember my first Scarlet Tanager, atop a tall tree in Central Park as a swirling Saturday crowd surged unknowingly around it.
Sometimes I’ve had people look at a Cardinal and ask, “Can anything BE more red?”
Well, yeah, actually…
Hey Corey, I didn’t know you were photographing the bird Exhibit at the NYS Museum, you should have called 🙂
Awesome pictures by the way!
What magic do you use to get ’em where you want ’em? No bird sits for me like that especially not a smasher like that. Just amazing, even to get him to serenade you as well!
Stunning shots of that redder-than-red tanager, Corey. Outstanding!
Wow! Corey, you sure did hit the “jackpot!” Not only a gorgeous bird to look at, but he cooperated and stuck around while you managed to get you photography equipment set up. If I could only be so lucky! ;o)
@Everyone: Thanks! Though I should be thanking the tanager…
@Laura: I shoot with a Cannon EOS 20D hooked up to a Swarovski STS 80 HD Scope. It is marvelous!
@Jochen and Dale: I don’t know how you guys mange to stay birding without North America’s bright birds…and then I remember things like rollers and hoopoes and I don’t feel bad for you at all.
@Will: Shhh…you’ll let my secret out!
@Arija: Well, it’s not what Will said…
Yeah, and then I remember that Hoopoes are very rare in Germany and Rollers do not occur here at all anymore (extinct in Germany) and think I will make sure I make you feel very bad for me next time we meet.
;-)))))
Dale: you know, birders in Europe go for the inner values of birds, not the flashy exterior.
Ortolan buntings have a tremendous inner beauty. It was due to them that a badly planned highway construction project in Germany was altered significantly to be less devastating, which was more than most birders/conservation people could have hoped for.
Inner beauty.
Absolutely.
Gorgeous captures of an amazingly day-glow red Tanager! Scarlet is right! I don’t think I could tear myself away from a bird that bright until it actually flew away. Thanks for sharing your good fortune!
Oh my, I am sitting here with my jaw dropped! What a treat you have had…amazing pics.
I was at Jamaica Bay NWR on Thursday. As I arrived I saw a northern cardinal right next to the visitor center. A little later along the west shore of the West Pond I saw a flash of bright red and black.
It crossed my mind that it was an early arriving scarlet tanager. Unfortunately I did not get a good look. I did not add a scarlet tanager to my day list because I was not sure enough of the ID to do so. At the time I wrote it off as a more likely cardinal rather than a more rare tanager.
Seeing Corey’s great pictures I am a little more sure I did see a scarlet tanager.
I’ve found myself going back to the photos in this post several times now. I’m not a photographer, just a watcher. So I’m glad there are guys out there who do this kind of thing. I look for a Scarlet Tanager every May. A day in the woods without finding it is…well i was going to say not great…. but truth is, every day in the woods is great. Still, when I see the tanager I think maybe the rest of the year will be okay. Thanks for sharing these shots.