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March 29, 2024

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No Time for Tuckerman -

Thursday, August 3, 2023

The Quitter Returns! -

Monday, March 21, 2022

Putting the goober in gubernatorial -

Friday, January 28, 2022

Return of Bird of the Week: Silvery-backed Tanager

Silver-backed Tanager, Ollyantantambo, Peru

Another spectacular tanager, the Silver-backed Tanager, feeding on a berry on the grounds of the hotel where were staying. It’s also called a Silvery Tanager, but that seems less descriptive to WC. Officially it’s Tangara viridicollis, the same genus as last week’s Saffron-crowned Tanager. But that’s no particular distinction, there are fifty-some species in the genus Tangara, most of them ridiculously spectacularly colorful. But unlike most Tangara species, the Silver-backed Tanager is strongly dichromatic. The female is very different. (No, it’s not a very good photo; an extremely uncooperative subject. But good enough to illustrate the point.) Silvery-backed Tanagers are omnivorous, eating fruits, nuts…