Tag Archives: Western Tanager

Flying Fruit Salad

colored pencil sketch of Western Tanager

Western Tanager

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!