Silver-beaked Tanager

Ramphocelus carbo


The Birds of the World website offers these introductory words about the Silver-beaked Tanager:  The Silver-beaked Tanager is a common resident of bushy forest margins and secondary forest across the Amazon basin from Venezuela south to Northern Paraguay.  Male Silver-beaked Tanagers are stunningly colored birds with velvety blackish-crimson heads and underparts, darker blackish-crimson upperparts and a bill that is black above and shining silvery white below.  Females are a dull dark reddish brown with a brighter red rump.  In poor light, these tanagers appear all dark with a white bill. Silver-beaked Tanagers travel in noisy bands of 4 to 10 individuals in the undergrowth along forest borders.  As Silver-beaked Tanagers forage for fruit and insects, they hop rapidly and heavily through foliage often nervously flicking their tales and wings.

I saw and photographed my first Silver-beaked Tanager on the afternoon of August 18, 2023 in the Amazon Basin Region of Brazil.  Our small group with Jeff Parker Tours was at Southwild’s Fazenda São Nicolau located on the Juruena River west of Alta Floresta.  We were walking around the headquarters area of the lodge when we spotted a Silver-beaked Tanager in the bushes at the edge of the forest .  For a more detailed description of this day, look here at my blog post on my Brazil trip.  Here are some of my photos of this new bird.

SILVER-BEAKED TANAGER AT THE SOUTHWILD AMAZON LODGE, ON THE AFTERNOON OF AUGUST 18, 2023.
A LITTLE DIFFERENT LOOK AT THE SILVER-BEAKED TANAGER I WATCHED AT SOUTHWILD LODGE.