Birdland: Great Balls Of Fire

Looking at a male Western Tanager is like gazing at a flame, with its orange-red head, brilliant yellow body, and coal-black wings, back and tail. That vivid description is courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These birds get their scarlet head feathers from a rare pigment that comes from the insects they like to eat. Western Tanagers like to hang out in conifer forests and open woods all over the West; this bird was photographed in a cottonwood tree at First Creek Trail northeast of Park Hill by Mark Silverstein.