By Sally Siko

With the long hot summer days upon us, it’s admittedly a little hard to psych myself up to go birding. Even in the morning the humidity just sucks the energy right outta me. Yeah I’ll admit it, imo wintertime can’t return fast enough lol!
But despite the temperatures, I’m so glad I took a quick trip to go look for some birds at Mason Farm Preserve last weekend in Chapel Hill NC because I was rewarded with a glimpse of this gorgeous Scarlet Tanager.
Though I wasn’t able to get any decent close up photos of him, it was really neat to see one out in the open.

Scarlet Tanagers are spring & summertime residents of North Carolina and are best found from the Appalachian mountains to the Triangle region. Though they do show up in our eastern counties, their numbers appear to be higher in the western portions of the state.
One of three species of red birds found in NC, with that bright plumage they look similar to Summer Tanagers or even Northern Cardinals but are easy enough to ID (even at a distance) by their onyx black wings and tails.

These beauties usually like to hang out in the upper canopies of the trees (especially oaks) of deciduous forests which can make them tricky to spot while hiking in the woods. The best way to find one is to listen for it’s distinctive calls of slurred whistles of pit-ti-tuck separated by short pauses that can sound quite similar to (but shorter than) an American Robin with a sore throat lol!

They’ll stick around North Carolina through mid October so if you’re willing to brave the heat this summer, you still have plenty of time to go see one!

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds