Halls of the Dark Muse

The common visitors which we usually get at our bird feeders include sparrows, finches, red-winged black birds, doves as a bit of a newer addition. The occasional starling, and there used to be a junco but I do not recall having seen him come around in a while.

And we also get the occasional falcon or hawk whom comes to try and pick off the other birds.

But today I saw something quite different which stood out among the usual subjects. It had the bright colors of a finch being primarily yellow with black wings and orange upon its head, but it had not the right size and body type to be a finch. It was too big and I knew it was something distinct that I haven't seen before.

So I looked it up and it appears to be a Western Tanager, but I did not think that those birds inhabited this area and there is another bird which is of similar appearance the California Oriole which I thought it might be, but they live primarily in Southern California and are not really found up North and there are certain differences in the appearance of the two birds and the Tanager more closely resembled what I saw.

I know there are people who keep birds around here, and a woman who used to have an aviary, so I thought maybe it was someone's pet and managed to get away. I began researching to seeing if in fact they were known to be in this area, but they live primarily up in the Sierras and are found more often in conifer forest areas opposed to residential.

But I did find a couple of different websites which suggested that they apparently do pass through this area on their migration path. So he could have just been passing on through and popped off a bit to rest and eat before resuming his journey.