As an artist I find the vivid red of the scarlet tanager very difficult to simulate with pigment. To get the fiery glow in this painting I first laid in a wash of clear yellow, then the red, allowing the yellow to glow through. The white of the paper would have resulted in a cooler, less vibrant red.

The flowers were drawn from two twigs that I snipped from one of the two large tulip trees that grow near my home in Old Lyme, Connecticut. At least two pairs of tanagers live within hearing of my studio. Their burry phrases "like a robin with a sore throat", can be heard at any hour of the day during the early summer. By August the males fall silent and gradually assume a green and yellow look much like the modest females.

Scarlet tanagers breed east of the 100 degree meridian, from southern Canada to Oklahoma and northern Georgia. They winter in the tropics.

- Roger Tory Peterson