Western Tanager

Description:

Yellow bird with black wings. There is a white band on the lower portion of the wing, with a yellow marking above it. The Western Tanager typically has an orange head but this specimen's head was muted orange.

Habitat:

From Audubon.org: Open conifer or mixed forests; widespread in migration. Breeds mostly in the high mountains or the North, in forest of spruce, fir, pine, aspen, rarely in lower elevation woods mostly of oak. In migration may occur in any habitat, even desert. Winters in the tropics mostly in pine-oak woods or forest edge. In California, may winter in eucalyptus groves.

Notes:

This bird is RARE in Georgia. It's range is typically in the western US, as far as east as western South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and northern Texas. Local bird experts informed me that there are usually a couple of specimens that appear in Georgia during the winter months. I had misidentified this bird at first, but two experts confirmed it was a Western Tanager and asked me to upload it to a couple of sites as confirmation that it was sighted in Georgia in November 2019. Photographs taken with a Canon 80D, and a Tamron 150-600 lens set at 600mm.