They're beautiful birds, aren't they?  We see them fairly often around here.  Most recently, I saw a female that a fellow was rehabilitating at his place up on the Middle Fork of the Boise River.  She was a pretty friendly cuss--liked going in and out his window.  She slept indoors at night.

Thought maybe those outside North America might like seeing images of a couple of our other native tanagers.  I used to see both when I lived in the midwest when I was a kid.

The Summer Tanager:

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And the Scarlet Tanager:

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Best wishes,

George   

Bird plumage can be very vivid to us, as in these tanagers, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that what birds see is very different from what we see.  Birds can see into the ultraviolet, and some of the species that look like "LBJ's" (little brown jobs) to us may, in fact, be extraordinarily vivid to another bird.  Birds also have four color receptors in their eyes, unlike the two we have, and are able to distinguish details that are far more subtle than we can imagine.

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We're just beginning to understand this, and it will be interesting to see what is learned as time goes on.

Their sense of hearing is different as well.

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Add to that the fact that birds may be able to see the polarized shifts in sunlight, and detect and "see" the magnetic fields of the earth, and their experience of the world becomes quite alien to ours.

They truly are "foreigners".

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Sorry for the tangent--but this stuff is endlessly interesting to me.

Best wishes,

George