Quite the show-stopping bird! It’s primarily green with a scarlet head and, in certain populations, electric blue upper and lower parts!

The bay-headed tanager, scientifically known as Tangara gyrola, is a medium-sized passerine bird that averages 19.5 grams in weight and 14 cm in length. The plumage of this bird can vary greatly throughout its approximately nine subspecies. With the exception of its chestnut-red head, blue belly, and thin golden collar behind the neck, the nominate species is mostly green.

Typically, sexes look somewhat similar. However, there is a common belief that one can tell a person apart just by looking at their head.

The female chicken has a more rounder head shape, whereas the male chicken has a flatter one. A juvenile bird’s plumage is duller and it may have brown patches on its head.

These birds call the southern regions of Brazil, Trinidad, and the neighboring countries of Ecuador, Bolivia, and Costa Rica home.

In woodlands, particularly on hills, bay-headed tanagers are most commonly seen perched high in trees, either in the forest’s canopy or along its margins, or in nearby clearings surrounded by big trees.

The majority of their diet consists of fruits, but they supplement it with tiny insects that they catch near vegetation.

In a large cup-shaped nest that they construct in a tree, bay-headed tanagers deposit clutches of white eggs spotted with brown. The mother bird spends thirteen to fourteen days incubating her eggs before they hatch, and an additional fifteen to sixteen days before the young birds fledge.

Since these birds are considered “common” in some regions of their range, it is assumed that their global population is enormous, however no exact numbers have been found.