We had a special visitor to our MAPS bird banding station this June! This is a male Summer Tanager in its first alternate plumage (FCA).
This first photo shows a nice example of juvenal1 (yellow) vs non-juvenal (red, alternate plumage in this case) tail feather shape.
The next photo shows the typical mottled red and yellow plumage of a male in the summer following the year it hatched.
To nerd out on molt even further… this bird left its nest last year in yellowish juvenal plumage, and did a partial “pre-formative” molt of body feathers at the end of the summer (replacing yellow juvenal feathers with yellow formative feathers). Before this summer, he did an incomplete “pre-alternate” molt, replacing some body feathers and much of the tail with red alternate plumage, resulting in the mottled red and yellow coloration sported here. By next summer this stud will be entirely red.
