The story of the bird
A Summer Tanager, entirely rose-red, on a single Audubon-style plate. A warm gift for a birder with a soft spot for red birds, or a bold accent for a living room or den.
North America has many red birds. Most of them are partially red - a red crest here, a red breast there, red confined to the head or the wings or the flanks. The Summer Tanager does none of that. The adult male Piranga rubra is entirely, uniformly, unambiguously red from the tip of his stout bill to the end of his tail. No black. No white. No orange. Just red.
It is a specific red - a rose-red, warm and slightly soft, not the fire-engine crimson of the Northern Cardinal or the dark brick of the Hepatic Tanager. The colour is most intense in direct light, where it approaches vermilion; in shade it reads as a deep, muted rose. In the canopy of a Southern oak woodland, where he spends much of his time hunting bees and wasps, he can be surprisingly easy to miss despite the colour. The trick is the song: a rich, meandering musical phrase, often likened to a hoarse American Robin.
He is the only all-red bird in North America. That fact sounds simple. Lived in the field, in a landscape where every other red bird is complicated by pattern, it is startling.
The Summer Tanager breeds across the southern half of the United States and winters in Central and South America. The breeding window - when adult males are at full rose-red intensity - runs May through August. This print captures that season.
Paper and finish
Available in three sizes on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm - archival cotton, acid-free, matte finish. Printed by Prodigi using pigment inks rated 100+ years under display conditions.
| Size | Unframed | Framed |
|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10 in | $39 | $99 |
| 16 × 20 in | $69 | $149 |
| 24 × 30 in | $99 | $199 |
Framed prints are glazed, no mat. Frame colours: black, white or natural.
