Jerry,

Orange Scarlet Tanagers are spectacular and startling, to say the least.   My 
first was in 1958 along a trail next to Al Driscoll's house (if you know who 
he is) in Haddonfield, NJ.   The second one was in Boy Scout Woods at High 
Island, TX, three years ago.   To my utter amazement it was accompanied by a 
brilliant lemon-yellow Scarlet Tanager.   I had read about the orange variant, but 
never the yellow.   For the organic chemists in the audience, this shows the 
power of moving an hydroxyl group around on the benzene rings of a pigment 
molecule, or something along those lines.

Paul O'Brien
Rockville, Mont. Co., MD
 

In a message dated 5/17/07 11:50:23 AM,  writes:


> 
> And now the big news. I had my second-ever Orange Variant of the Scarlet
> Tanager. Laura and I had one at Deep Creek Lake about 15 years ago. It was
> in a tree right next to the lake along Rt 219 and at first we thought it was
> another Oriole. There were several of those around at the time, too. Then we
> realized that it didn't have any black on the head and the black on the
> wings was missing the wing bars. Today I had one singing on a trail to the
> right off of what I call "Piccadilly Circus" - the point at the end of the
> second old field where about eight trails meet. This plumage warrants a
> special note by Sibley on p 356 of the field guide and is also shown on p
> 463 of the Sibley Guide to Birds.
> 
> Jerry Tarbell
> Carroll County
> 




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