This morning a pair ot western tanagers were feeding in a madrona beside our
house above the Fauntleroy ferry in West Seattle. These are the first
tanagers we have observed here in over 20 years. Is this an irruption? I
thought they were on the decline in W. Wash.

Bill Mulligan

We've had a bumper crop of western tanagers in our back yard and surrounding
yards the last two early evenings between 5:30 and 7:30 pm. Monday we saw at
least 4; tuesday at least 5 were seen at once including 3 males and 2
females.
A half hour after that bunch flew north a few more showed up from the yards
to
the south and I don't know if they were repeats or new birds.

One sat in a tree making his tribbit! tribbit! tribbit! call incessantly for
several minutes.

Last year we only saw 2 tanagers total.

Don't know if this sort of showing is old hat for other yard birders but
it's
pretty darn exciting for me!

Our property and the surrounding yards feature a grove of huge black locust
trees, some smaller evergreens and deciduous trees and a lot of bushes, so
we
see some nice migrants and this is our best time of year. Still waiting for
grosbeaks.

Alyssa
Maple Leaf/Northgate
Seattle
alyssasampson at attbi.com