Piranga olivacea
Identification. Breeding male brilliant red body with jet-black wings and tail. Female and non-breeding male olive-yellow with dark wings. Hoarse 'chick-burr' call. Song resembles a robin with a sore throat.
Status in Michigan. Breeding migrant in mature deciduous forest. Scarlet Tanager is a canopy species of mature deciduous forest across the Lower Peninsula and southern Upper Peninsula. Arrival in early May, departure in September. The species is more often heard than seen because it sings from high canopy.
Habitat. Mature, contiguous deciduous and mixed forest. Requires large blocks of unbroken canopy.
Where to find Scarlet Tanager. Best heard rather than seen. Hartwick Pines State Park, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and the Manistee National Forest support reliable breeding populations.
Best Michigan counties for Scarlet Tanager. Crawford, Leelanau, Marquette, Antrim, Otsego. Click any county above to see recent Scarlet Tanager sightings and hotspot information.
Conservation. Modest long-term decline tracked by Breeding Bird Survey. Loss of mature forest blocks and forest fragmentation are the primary concerns. Currently not federally listed.
The sightings table below this section pulls live Scarlet Tanager reports from eBird across all 83 Michigan counties, refreshed every 15 minutes. For comprehensive historical records and global range information, the eBird species profile and Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of the World account are the authoritative references.
Edited by Chris Izworski, Bay City, Michigan. Sightings data from eBird, updated every 15 minutes.