Birders can spot the vibrant hepatic tanager and flame-colored tanager in the southwestern states—if you know where to look.
All About Flame-Colored and Hepatic Tanagers
Updated on Jan. 03, 2025
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Hepatic Tanager Identification
Tanagers are colorful songbirds that dot the treetops and call out a husky song across America every summer. In mountain pine forests of the Southwest, from southern Colorado to Arizona and western Texas, a pair of tanagers—a red male and yellow female—might look like summer tanagers at first glance. But the male has more brick red plumage, not rose-red like a summer tanager. These are hepatic tanagers, members of a tropical species that’s very widespread, found all the way south to Argentina. The species actually gets its unique name from the male’s liver-like coloring.
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Female Hepatic Tanager
The female of this species is a richer yellow color with gray cheeks.
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Hepatic Tanager Range
Hepatic tanagers are barely migratory, just withdrawing from the northern edge of their range in fall, and a few can be found in Arizona even in winter. Another good place to look for this species is Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Hepatic Tanager Diet
Hepatic tanagers eat mostly insects, such as caterpillars and beetles, but also enjoy berries, especially in late summer.
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Flame-Colored Tanager Identification
Males are reddish-orange with dark stripes on their backs and distinctive white wing markings.
Female Flame-Colored Tanager
Female flame-colored tanagers are olive green and yellow. They look similar to female western tanagers, but watch for those white wing spots.
Flame-Colored Tanager Range
The flame-colored tanager is a more uncommon American visitor than other types of tanagers. In fact, these birds were never found north of the Mexican border until 1985, when a single male appeared in Arizona’s Chiricahua Mountains. American bird-watchers have reported several of the birds since, and the birds have been reported nesting in Arizona. But the flame-colored tanager is still considered a rare species in the mountains of southern Arizona and western Texas.
