Summer Tanager

Look for

The male is entirely rose-red, top to tail — no black, no mask, no wing bars. Looks like a cardinal without the crest. The female is mustard-yellow to olive, sometimes with a slight orange wash, also no wing bars.

A pale, thick, slightly curved bill — distinctively long and stout. They perch high in the canopy and can be hard to spot even when singing.

Size: ~7.75" — between a sparrow and a robin.

Listen for

• Song: a series of sweet, whistled, robin-like phrases — slower, more musical, and less rough than a robin's. "Cheery carol" is a common description.
• Call: a distinctive "pik-ki-tuck" or "pit-a-tuck" — the single best ID for this bird. Once you know the call, you'll find Summer Tanagers everywhere in Memphis in June.

Where in Memphis

Mature deciduous woodland — especially oak and pine:

• Overton Park Old Forest
• Meeman-Shelby Forest
• Wolf River Greenway
• Shelby Farms wooded areas
• Lichterman Nature Center
• Large suburban yards with mature oaks

Arrives mid-April, peaks May–July, gone by late September.

Behavior

• Bee and wasp specialists. Summer Tanagers catch bees and wasps in midair, then beat them against a branch to remove the stinger before swallowing. They're one of the few birds that can safely eat hornets.
• Raid bee and wasp nests. They tear open paper-wasp nests and eat the larvae — sometimes causing serious losses to honey-bee apiaries, which earned them the Southern nickname "beebird."
• Canopy foragers. They stay high, often 40+ feet up.
• Distinct from Scarlet Tanager. The Scarlet Tanager has black wings and is a migrant through Memphis but doesn't breed here. Summer Tanager breeds.

Story & folklore

"Summer Redbird" — distinguishing from the Winter Redbird

In the rural South, two birds are both called "redbird":

• Northern Cardinal = "winter redbird" — present all year, including winter
• Summer Tanager = "summer redbird" — only here in warm months

Old Southerners could tell you which was which by season and crest: cardinal has a crest and stays; tanager is smooth-headed and leaves. The distinction is still current in parts of rural West Tennessee.

"Beebird" and the apiarist's frustration

In the early 1900s, beekeepers across the South reported heavy losses to Summer Tanagers raiding hives. The birds would perch nearby, pick off workers one by one, and de-sting them. Apiary journals recommended netting hives in June.

Despite this, Summer Tanagers are beneficial overall — they eat enormous numbers of wasps, hornets, and carpenter bees from backyards, and commercial bee losses to tanagers are negligible compared to mites and pesticides. The "beebird" reputation is mostly a folk memory now.

The "peek-i-tuck"

Every Memphis birder learns the Summer Tanager call as an auditory fingerprint. If you hear a rhythmic "pik-i-tuck" coming from high in an oak during June, you don't even need to look up. It's the canopy heartbeat of Memphis summer.

Cultural tie: color symbolism

In Choctaw and Cherokee traditions, the red tanager (along with the cardinal) is sometimes associated with fire, summer, and the sun — fitting for a bird that appears with the heat and leaves with the cool.

Fun facts

• Summer Tanagers are in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae), despite the name "tanager." Taxonomists reclassified them in 2005.
• They winter in Central and South America, some reaching Bolivia.
• Males are not red their first year — young males are blotchy yellow-and-red, sometimes striking patchwork patterns.
• They can eat up to 150 bees per day.
• Their bee-de-stinging behavior is learned, not instinctive — young birds occasionally get stung in the face while figuring it out.
• A good Summer Tanager territory persists for decades — the same oak grove may host the species every summer for generations.
• They fly nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico twice a year.

Field notes (to add)

• Audio: "pik-i-tuck" call repeated
• Photo: male, female, and first-summer patchy male
• Comparison with Northern Cardinal and Scarlet Tanager
• Historical beekeeping sidebar (1900–1940 apiary journals)