Summer Tanagers are a beautiful summer bird of the American South that rarely strays north of New Jersey. This morning Ingrid looked out the window and was stunned to see a male Summer Tanager. A real rarity for mid-April in Maine.

For the next three hours we watched him eat sunflower, nyger and mixed bird seeds. “Summer” visited all of our feeders, chased gold finches away and posed for photos with Pine Siskins and Warblers.

We had heard it singing before we saw it on the feeder. Neither of us recognized the song so we knew something unusual was in yard.

This our second surprise visit by a Summer Tanager . . . as a female showed up in the woods outside our Cape Elizabeth, Maine condo back in 2021.

Really love this bird.