I sat down to eat my chocolate chip pancakes on Mother’s Day and nearly swallowed my back teeth when a flock of flying fruit salads landed in our big fir tree. Cherry red, bright orange, lemon yellow, a dash of olive green… the males were glorious. The females, poor dears, were mouse brown with a bit of olive – no fair.
Apparently these gorgeous Western Tanagers pass through Corvallis for a day or two each year, just about Mother’s Day, on their way from Southern Mexico to somewhere in Canada. Magic!