Parke,

I'm not the expert here but it sounds like a Scarlet Tanager molting into
basic plumage.  And without noting whether it had a black back it will be
difficult to make a convincing case that it was a Western.  Scarlets do
have wing bars on occasion; usually not very strong.  This Turkey Point
bird sounds like an extreme case of that variant, especially since other
things are wrong for a Western.  The "red" is misplaced and to my eye a
Western Tanager does not have red on its head.  It's an orange nothing
like the color of a typical Scarlet Tanager.

A dirty little secret about field guides is that they're intended for
identifying common birds within their expected range.  Birds show
remarkable variation; so much that a field guide cannot be complete
without adding so much trivia that it would be useless to most of its
intended audience.  Some of the newer guides are better but we're still
left with the situation that an unusual plumage of a common bird is more
likely than any plumage of a rare bird.

An interesting bird non-the-less.  I would like to have seen it.  And I'm
certainly interested in other opinions.

Dave
David Mozurkewich
Seabrook, PG MD USA
mozurk @ bellAtlantic.net

On Mon, 9 Aug 2004, parke wrote:

> Saturday August, 7, Turkey Point approximately 9:00 am. The bird was
> observed mid-story in a group of Honey Locust.  The bird was an obvious
> tanager and acting like a tanager.  It had a deep yellow body, black
> wings with a large white wing bar.  However, the bright red was only on
> the nape of the head, extending to the sides of the neck, but not on the
> back or top of the head (the head was the same yellow color as the body,
> except for the red area). The front of the head and throat were yellow
> also.  I did not notice the yellow shoulder bar.
>
> Parke
>