Tanagers

As J. and I walked in toward Three Mile River on our first night on the Appilacian Trail almost fifteen years ago, three male scarlet tanagers joined us. They flew low along the trail or in the woods on either side of us. The birds, startlingly red with black wings and tails stayed with us for nearly a mile, and from them I took my trail name: Tanager.

The Birds of Ecuador has seven plates of tanagers illustrating almost 140 species, two of which return to the northeastern US each spring. As we left Otavalo and began working our way through the Intag and Guayllabamba vallies, tanagers again graced my trail. Around Apuela the Lemon-rumped Tanager, a glossy black bird with a lemon-yellow patch on its lower back was common along the roadsides and field edges.

When we paused at the Rio Guyabamba Yellow-tufted Dachnises and White-shouldered Tanagers gleaned for fruits on the river side trees. But it was on the road to Santa Lucia that tanagers became our daily companions. The brightly colored birds called from the tree tops and roadside shrubs hopping and flitting in search of fruits and insects. We saw the red, yellow and turquise Bay-headed Tanager, the striking Golden Tanager, and the common Blue-winged Mountain Tanager.

With colors equalling the brilliance of tropical fish, Orange-billed Euphonias and Flame-faced Tanagers moved through the canopy in mixed flocks with Beryl-spangled Tanagers and Metalic-green Tanagers. We delighted in watching them, though each encounter sent us scrambling for the bird book. What a warm welcome they offered, these creatures. A sweet glimpse of the familiar in the foreign.