Author: Nicole Biton
If you walked past the Cornell Store on Friday, you may have seen a large congregation of people assembled near the store’s rear entrance. Several members of the crowd had out large professional cameras; the rest were taking snaps with their iPhone cameras. What was all the fuss? In the middle of the semicircle that had formed around it was a tiny, yellow bird, seemingly no bigger than a baseball.
Photo by Jay McGowan
For such a little creature, the little guy’s presence is certainly a big deal. Identified as the Western Tanager, the bird has been spotted around campus for the last couple of weeks. This particular species is typically found in coniferous environments and are the northernmost-breeding tanager. A relative of the Scarlet Tanager, the birds are common in the western parts of the United States.
But though its presence in the western part of the country is common, the Western Tanager is very rare here on the East Coast. According to Jay McGowan, a Multimedia Collections Specialist here in Cornell’s Ornithology Department, it is also highly unusual for the bird to be found anywhere north of Mexico at this time of year–let alone in icy Ithaca. In fact, as he related, “this is one of only a handful of records for this species in this part of the state.”
Photo by Jay McGowan
Yet so many questions remain to be answered. How did it get here? Is it lost? Is it ok? Whatever the case, the Western Tanager’s presence here in Ithaca is nothing short of a big deal. From all of us here at Slope Media, stay safe little bird! We hope you get to where you need to go.
