Yellow-winged Tanager

Overview

The yellow-winged tanager (Thraupis abbas) is a neotropical bird belonging to the tanager family. It is of average size for its kind and is generally relatively common throughout its range.

Identification

• Distinguished by yellow patches on its dusky green wings, contrasting with an otherwise dark bluish and grey body.
• Features a pale lavender tone on its throat and breast, a colour absent in juveniles which instead have an olive-green head and upper back.
• Approximately 18 cm (7.1 in) long.
• Calls are high and sibilant, often given in flight or while perched.

Habitat

Favours open humid and mesic woodland. Its range covers the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean coasts from Veracruz and the extreme south of San Luis Potosi in Mexico through the Yucatán Peninsula to Nicaragua, as well as the Pacific coast from the Mexican state of Chiapas to Honduras.

Diet

Feeds on fruit, insects, and nectar. It often forms flocks of 50 or more members.

Did you know?

Although its distribution in Costa Rica was historically limited, the species has been recorded in Los Chiles, northern Costa Rica, since October 2010.