State Guide
Red Birds in West Virginia
You hear him before you see him. A hoarse, burry carolling from somewhere up in the oak canopy - like a robin that has been smoking. Then a gap opens in the leaves and there he is: a male Piranga olivacea, Scarlet Tanager, sixty feet up and burning red against the grey-green of a Monongahela June morning.
West Virginia is almost entirely Appalachian highland. No flat coastal plain, no prairie edge, no Great Lakes shoreline. The state is 78 per cent forested, and most of that forest is the mature deciduous hardwood the Scarlet Tanager needs. The cardinal gets the credit in people’s gardens, but this is tanager country. No state in the east gives the Scarlet Tanager a better argument for staying.
In West Virginia, the Northern Cardinal is the bird everyone notices, but the state is ecologically built for the Scarlet Tanager.
The species
| Species | Red feature | When to look |
|---|---|---|
| Northern Cardinal | Males entirely red | Year-round |
| Scarlet Tanager | Males red with black wings | May through September |
| Summer Tanager | Males fully red-orange | May through August |
| Rose-breasted Grosbeak | Red triangle on breast | May through August |
| Red-headed Woodpecker | Entirely red head | Year-round |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | Red cap and nape | Year-round |
| House Finch | Red wash on head and breast | Year-round |
| Purple Finch | Raspberry-red wash on male | Year-round at feeders |
| Red Crossbill | Males brick-red all over | Year-round at elevation |
The Northern Cardinal works every habitat on the list - garden, suburb, forest edge. It is the default red bird of the eastern United States and West Virginia is no exception. But the state’s elevation and canopy depth tilt the balance. The Summer Tanager is near its northern range limit here, partial to the drier pine-oak ridges in the southern counties. The Rose-breasted Grosbeak nests in the same mid-elevation second-growth woods where the Scarlet Tanager hunts caterpillars, and the two species can be singing from the same stand on a May morning.
Where to go
New River Gorge National Park - The gorge runs 53 miles through southern West Virginia at elevations low enough to hold a full suite of breeding species. Scarlet Tanagers, Summer Tanagers, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks all nest in the surrounding mixed hardwood. The canyon itself funnels spring migration.
Monongahela National Forest - Nearly 900,000 acres of contiguous Appalachian forest, which is a number worth stopping on. Scarlet Tanagers are common throughout the mature hardwood sections. The forest also holds West Virginia’s highest ridges, and at the upper elevations the bird community shifts noticeably.
Dolly Sods Wilderness - The plateau sits close to 4,000 feet and the vegetation switches to spruce, sphagnum bog, and wind-sheared heath. This is where Red Crossbills appear - the only place in West Virginia where they nest with any regularity. The crossbill depends on spruce and fir cone crops, and Dolly Sods holds a fragment of the boreal habitat that once covered much of the Allegheny highlands. The species is nomadic and irruptive; some years there are none, some years there are dozens.
Cranberry Glades - A glacial relict bog in Pocahontas County that sits at 3,400 feet and supports sphagnum, sundew, and a bird community more typical of central Canada than the mid-Atlantic. Worth the drive for the strangeness of the place alone.
Seasonal shape
Spring is the pivot. Tanagers arrive in early May, often within a few days of the same date each year. The male Scarlet Tanager in full breeding plumage - that particular combination of insult-red and carbon-black - is one of the sharpest contrasts in North American birding. He is also, by August, already changing: the red fades to yellowish-green as he moults into winter plumage before the southbound trip to South America.
Summer is for breeding. Scarlet Tanagers are canopy nesters and easy to miss once the leaves are full. The call - a chip-burr, quick and distinctive - is the reliable way to find them. Both tanager species, the woodpeckers, and the Northern Cardinal are all actively nesting through June and July.
Autumn brings southbound migration and the departure of the summer visitors. Cardinals, woodpeckers, crossbills, and House Finches stay. The finch flight in late October can bring Purple Finches and House Finches down from higher elevations to garden feeders.
Winter narrows the list to the permanent residents. Cardinals at feeders, Red-bellied and Red-headed Woodpeckers on suet, and if the cone crop is right, crossbills at Dolly Sods. A winter trip to the Allegheny highlands for crossbills is not guaranteed but worth the gamble every few years.
The cardinal in context
The Northern Cardinal is the state bird of seven states, and West Virginia is one of them. The male’s year-round presence and willingness to use garden feeders makes him the most-watched red bird in the state by a wide margin. He works the forest edge and the suburb with equal ease, and by February he is already singing - weeks before the tanagers are anywhere near West Virginia.
If you want a print of the state’s most-watched species, the Northern Cardinal print captures the male in the manner of the old natural history plates. But the bird to chase if you are making a trip is the tanager. The cardinal will be at your feeder when you get home. The Scarlet Tanager will be in South America by October.
The molting behaviour of the Northern Cardinal in late summer is one reason he goes unnoticed at his most interesting. August is when the male looks rough, scruffy, and sometimes bald-headed, while the Scarlet Tanager beside him is making the opposite journey - burning brightest just before he leaves.
West Virginia rewards the visitor who looks up. The cardinal is in the shrubbery. The tanager is in the canopy. In a state that is almost entirely tree, the canopy is the point.
