FOLLY BEACH — A western tanager that is rarely seen east of Idaho has befriended a group of finches and found a new home on Folly Beach.
Resident Nancy Young said the female bird has been nesting on her property for about two weeks, and she plans to track her visit for as long as she stays.
Young, who is new to the Charleston area, said when she first moved to Folly Beach there were many birds around her property that she didn’t know how to identify. She started to pay closer attention to them and put up feeders around the house.
Soon after, a new bird joined the group of house finches in her yard, and it stood out from the rest.
Young noticed this particular bird had distinct markings on her wings and back.
“Anytime I tried to get a closer look, she’d fly off, and then all of a sudden I’d get this eyeful of her gorgeous yellow belly,” Young said. “And then I’m thinking, ‘What in the world could that be?’ ”
It took about 10 days for Young to be able to take a picture of the bird and share it with online bird groups. Her hope was that someone would help her identify it. Some folks said it was a tanager, others thought it could be a Baltimore oriole.
But this particular bird in Young’s yard had a yellow beak, which isn’t a characteristic of a Baltimore oriole. The bird was ultimately determined to be a western tanager, a species belonging to the cardinal family.
These birds typically breed on the West Coast and migrate to parts of Central America and South America in the wintertime. But sometimes the weather throws them off course, said Nicole Marie Pettinelli, a local naturalist.
Pettinelli, who leads the Charleston Bird Club, said a handful of western tanagers are typically seen each winter in the Lowcountry. In the past, people reported them in West Ashley, Mount Pleasant and North Charleston. But, so far, Young’s bird is the only one to be reported this year, Pettinelli said.
Some western tanagers that make the trek to South Carolina end up returning to the state the year after.
“They have a positive experience and then they come back,” Pettinelli said. “They remember that, and so they come back. It’s usually a young bird, and so that’s embedded in their mind.”
Young said she has enjoyed watching the bird’s behavior and observing how she has gotten more comfortable around the feeders over time. She tends to be very "flighty" and travels to and from the property all day long. She normally gets to the feeder in the mornings before the house finches do.
When the bird first arrived, she ate suet. But now she is eating a lot more seeds, Young said.
Young said she believes these eating habits could be a good sign that the bird is planning to stick around.
eBird, an online birding community managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has asked Young to track the rare find while it is on her property.
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January 30, 2021 at 03:30AM
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Western tanager bird rare to SC finds new home on Folly Beach - Charleston Post Courier
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