It's easy to anthropomorphize animals, assigning human qualities and traits to them. We often call our dogs sad when they're scolded or our cats happy when they run toward an open can of tuna fish.
But their reactions and motivations are based on their own unique and usually more limited animal emotions. However when I observed a pair of summer tanagers in my Prescott yard this past weekend, it was hard not to think in terms of a caring human story.
This is the first summer I've notice these migratory birds from Mexico in my neighborhood. Since June I've seen them high in the ponderosa pine trees, the male flashing his bright scarlet suit and the female sporting a drab yellow coat of feathers. But their appearances, as showy as they were, were brief until this past weekend.
One morning I saw a burst of bright red against the dull green of my front yard's alligator juniper tree. It was the male summer tanager, hopping from branch to branch in the tree that holds both seed and suet feeders. If he was hungry it wasn't for anything I was providing because he quickly departed, flying to a higher nearby pine tree.
He returned three times to the juniper, never pausing long enough for a photo. But on the second two times, the female of the pair joined in the visit, and stayed long enough to imbibe on a bit of the peanut-flavored suet.
This routine has repeated itself with some degree of regularity but with the male's visit less frequent and the female's more. She's often landing in a nearby oak tree, checking out the situation - human movement on the cabin's deck means danger! - and then visiting the feeder for some suet. Meanwhile the male is less visible, making periodic and flashy flybys higher in the trees.
Interestingly on a morning that two scrub jays noisily clamored for peanuts, the male summer tanager appeared out of nowhere, swooping close to the ground where the jays were stashing their nuts. He seemed to be giving the aggressive birds some kind of warning to mind their own business when his female might be in the vicinity.
Was he actually protecting his mate and his territory? I hear the tanagers' trills and whistles frequently when I can't see one or both of them, so clearly these long-distant migrants are regularly communicating. It doesn't take science to hypothesize that they're nesting nearby, closely bonded for a season raising a brood.
But when the bright red male's distant calls come from nowhere and the yellow female carefully enters the yard and delicately glides to a branch and gingerly hops on the suet, I also don't think it's illogical to think her own soft coos are an assurance saying in her sweet bird's voice, "I'm fine, dear."
But their reactions and motivations are based on their own unique and usually more limited animal emotions. However when I observed a pair of summer tanagers in my Prescott yard this past weekend, it was hard not to think in terms of a caring human story.
This is the first summer I've notice these migratory birds from Mexico in my neighborhood. Since June I've seen them high in the ponderosa pine trees, the male flashing his bright scarlet suit and the female sporting a drab yellow coat of feathers. But their appearances, as showy as they were, were brief until this past weekend.
One morning I saw a burst of bright red against the dull green of my front yard's alligator juniper tree. It was the male summer tanager, hopping from branch to branch in the tree that holds both seed and suet feeders. If he was hungry it wasn't for anything I was providing because he quickly departed, flying to a higher nearby pine tree.
He returned three times to the juniper, never pausing long enough for a photo. But on the second two times, the female of the pair joined in the visit, and stayed long enough to imbibe on a bit of the peanut-flavored suet.
This routine has repeated itself with some degree of regularity but with the male's visit less frequent and the female's more. She's often landing in a nearby oak tree, checking out the situation - human movement on the cabin's deck means danger! - and then visiting the feeder for some suet. Meanwhile the male is less visible, making periodic and flashy flybys higher in the trees.
Interestingly on a morning that two scrub jays noisily clamored for peanuts, the male summer tanager appeared out of nowhere, swooping close to the ground where the jays were stashing their nuts. He seemed to be giving the aggressive birds some kind of warning to mind their own business when his female might be in the vicinity.
Was he actually protecting his mate and his territory? I hear the tanagers' trills and whistles frequently when I can't see one or both of them, so clearly these long-distant migrants are regularly communicating. It doesn't take science to hypothesize that they're nesting nearby, closely bonded for a season raising a brood.
But when the bright red male's distant calls come from nowhere and the yellow female carefully enters the yard and delicately glides to a branch and gingerly hops on the suet, I also don't think it's illogical to think her own soft coos are an assurance saying in her sweet bird's voice, "I'm fine, dear."
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| Pair of summer tanagers in my Prescott yard. |
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| Male summer tanager with insects in his beak. |
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| Male summer tanager. |
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| Female summer tanager eyeing suet in my Prescott yards' alligator juniper tree. |
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| Female summer tanager in alligator juniper tree. |
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| Female summer tanager in alligator juniper tree. |
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