Red Birds in Delaware

Walk into Redden State Forest on a warm May morning and you may hear the Scarlet Tanager before you see him - a hoarse, burry song from the high canopy that sounds like a robin with a sore throat. Then he drops low enough to catch the light: a bird so red against black wings that the combination still registers as unlikely, even after you have seen it 20 times.

Delaware is not a state that impresses on a map. It is 96 miles long and nowhere wider than 35 miles. But it sits directly on the Atlantic Flyway, and that position means every species moving up the eastern seaboard passes through or stops over. For red birds specifically, the state offers something better than size: it offers contrast. A Cardinalis cardinalis at a Wilmington feeder in January. A Piranga olivacea - the Scarlet Tanager - in old-growth oak in June. A Piranga rubra - the Summer Tanager - in the pines of the south. Three very different shades of red, in three very different places, across one thin strip of Atlantic coast.

The cardinal is the constant. He is at the feeder in February, at the hedge in July, at the feeder again in November. He is the bird most Delaware residents stop noticing. That is a mistake. A male Northern Cardinal in breeding plumage is one of the most intensely red birds in North America, and unlike the tanagers, he earns that red not through migration but through commitment to a single patch of ground twelve months a year. His bill is heavy enough to crack seeds the tanagers cannot touch. If you feed sunflower, you already know him.

The tanagers require effort. The Scarlet Tanager is a forest interior bird. He does not visit suburban feeders. He needs mature deciduous forest - the kind with tall canopy oaks and a multi-layered understory, the kind Delaware mostly lost to agriculture in the 18th century and has been growing back since. Redden State Forest in Sussex County holds some of the best stands, as does Brandywine Creek State Park in the north. He arrives in late April, nests high enough that the nest is almost never found, and leaves again by September. His autumn plumage is olive-green and easily missed.

The Summer Tanager is a different story. He prefers pine-oak woodland and is concentrated in the coastal plain counties - Sussex and Kent - where sandy soil still carries stands of loblolly pine mixed with scrubby oak. He is the only entirely red bird in North America; even the female shows a warm orange-yellow wash that the Scarlet Tanager’s mate lacks. He arrives slightly later than the Scarlet Tanager and tends to hunt wasps and bees with a directness that seems impractical until you watch him long enough to realize it is highly efficient.

Delaware’s red birds are not interchangeable. The cardinal is a resident who owns his territory year-round. The Scarlet Tanager is a forest specialist who asks something of the birder. The Summer Tanager is a bird of the southern coastal plain that only just reaches this far north - and knowing that sharpens every sighting.

The other red birds in Delaware are worth a line each. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris, arrives in late April and the male’s throat patch shifts from black to brilliant scarlet in certain light - the kind of light that hits at a low angle when he hovers. The Red-bellied Woodpecker carries a full red cap and nape and is a year-round resident of deciduous woodland; the confusing name comes from a faint pink belly flush that is almost never visible in the field. The Red-headed Woodpecker - the one with a completely red head - is genuinely uncommon in Delaware, present but not reliable, requiring open woodland with standing dead timber.

House Finches and Purple Finches round out the list. The male House Finch is streaky red at the head, breast, and rump - the kind of red that looks brownish in flat light and surprisingly saturated in direct sun. The Purple Finch, which is less purple than raspberry-washed, passes through in winter and is easy to confuse with the House Finch until you notice the Purple Finch’s deeper color, larger bill, and lack of streaking on the flanks. For a detailed comparison with similar species, the notes on orange birds in Ohio and orange birds in Michigan cover the finch-versus-finch identification in more depth - the same challenge plays out across the mid-Atlantic states.

The best single site for Delaware birding is Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge - 16,000 acres of tidal salt marsh, fresh impoundments, and upland forest on the Delaware Bay. It is not a tanager site; it is a shorebird and waterfowl site. But it anchors the southern end of the Delaware Bay flyway corridor that also includes Prime Hook NWR, and if you are making the drive, the forests around both refuges are worth checking for cardinals, woodpeckers, and finches. Cape Henlopen State Park adds coastal pine forest where the tanager situation shifts again toward Summer over Scarlet.

The full species list by season:

Species	Red feature	Season	Best habitat
Northern Cardinal	Male all-red	Year-round	Gardens, woodland edges
Scarlet Tanager	Male red with black wings	Spring to autumn	Mature deciduous forest
Summer Tanager	Male entirely red	Spring to autumn	Pine-oak coastal plain
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	Male throat patch	Spring to autumn	Gardens, forest edges
Red-bellied Woodpecker	Red cap and nape	Year-round	Deciduous woodland
Red-headed Woodpecker	Entirely red head	Year-round (scarce)	Open woodland, snags
House Finch	Red head, breast, rump (male)	Year-round	Suburbs, feeders
Purple Finch	Raspberry wash (male)	Winter	Woodlands, feeders

For anyone building out a mental map of the mid-Atlantic states, the tanager picture in Delaware connects naturally to what happens a state west. The orange birds in Arkansas and orange birds in Illinois pieces trace related species as they fan out across the continent - the Summer Tanager, in particular, is a bird whose full range only makes sense when you see it mapped at scale.

Delaware’s red birds are worth a day, properly spent. The cardinal is free. The Scarlet Tanager costs you a walk into old timber. The Summer Tanager asks you to know which county you are standing in. That is about the right ratio of difficulty to reward for a state this size.

The cardinal molting piece covers what happens to that brilliant red plumage in August, when the male you have been watching all summer arrives at the feeder looking hollowed out. It is worth reading before you assume something is wrong.