This is Bird Note.

In summer, the forests of the Eastern United States are home to a bounty of birds.

Birds intriguing, attractive, malifluous, or mysterious.

But there's one bird in particular that nearly every time its name comes up, you hear

the word gorgeous, the scarlet tenager.

The male scarlet tenager is a deep dazzling red glowing with the luster of velvet.

His entire seven-inch body is feathered in scarlet, in bold contrast to his black wings and tail.

Scarlet tenagers nest within large tracts of mature forest where they forage for insects

under the shelter of the tree canopy.

It seems that such boldly colored birds might offer an easy target for predators, or for

a bird watcher's watchful gaze.

But though brilliant scarlet when viewed in the open, male scarlet tenagers are remarkably

hard to spot when perched among the branches overhead.

The contrasting bright and dark colors mimic summer's pattern of light and shadow within

the canopy.

Thus, the bird is often concealed.

So that gorgeous visitor from the tropics may well be hidden in plain sight.

For bird note, I'm Michael Stein.