Bluebird? Tanager? Galapagos sightings

Nov. 30

Long-time MBTCS member and director Joe Michielsen visited Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands earlier this year. Always with an eye on birds and other wildlife, he spotted a bird that at first glance could have been a bluebird.

Given that the species we know in Canada wouldn’t likely have migrated that far south at the time, Joe sought more information and was assisted by our Trail Master Steven Shumborski.

The bird was identified as a tanager and you can see their similarities in Joe’s photos.

“Thanks, Steven, for identifying it and getting me to spend hours on my Tanager photo collection,” says Joe. He sent the following:

“I am amazed at the evolution of these subspecies of Tanagers that are commonly called finches and certainly uncertain that I have got them all identified correctly. I am still trying to identify the mainland Ecuador Tanager species I have photos of. As for the bluebird of Ecuador, Steven identified it as a Blue-Gray Tanager; one of the 66 Tanagers identified as native to Ecuador.
“While there I did see many other Tanagers, photographed a few of them and also photographed some birds that may or may not be a Tanager. I was able to verify the species of some, and others I just believe to be some of the 66 Tanager species.
“Bluebirds are also Passerines in the Thrush family — all part of the interesting but not exact nomenclature of wildlife.
“While in the Galapagos I saw and photographed birds identified as some of the four bird species often called Darwin Finches because Charles Darwin studied them. They are in fact not finches but instead are species of Passerines in the Tanager Family.”