Blue-gray Tanager

Thraupis episcopus

eBird gives this description of the Blue-gray Tanager:  Common and widespread powder blue-gray bird of open and semi-open areas with larger trees and hedges, towns, villages, and gardens in tropical and subtropical regions. Mainly feeds at mid-upper levels in trees, eating fruit, and perches readily on phone wires. Rather plain but distinctive appearance, with beady dark eye and fairly stout bill. Populations east of the Andes in South America have broad white wing-bars and look very different.  The Birds of the World site provides this introductory information about this bird:  The Blue-gray Tanager is one of the most widespread, and ubiquitous, birds of the humid lowland neotropics. At almost any location between southeastern Mexico and central South America, it is a familiar presence at forest edge, in second-growth, along roads and rivers, in plantations, and even in urban parks and gardens. Blue-gray Tanagers prefer semi-open habitats; they are not found in interior of closed canopy forest, but they can quickly colonize fresh clearings. They are flexible as well in their diet, eating a wide variety of fruit, and also foraging for arthropods. Blue-gray Tanagers typically travel in pairs or small single-species flocks. They may briefly join mixed-species flocks, but do not travel with such flocks; however, Blue-gray Tanagers often join mixed-species aggregations of birds that are attracted to fruiting trees. Adult Blue-gray Tanagers are predominately light bluish gray, with brighter blue margins to the wings and tail. The wing coverts are bright blue on the subspecies that occur from Mexico to northern South America, and in South America west of the Andes; other subspecies have more or less contrasting, whitish wing coverts. The juveniles of all subspecies are duller in color, and closely resemble the Sayaca Tanager (Thraupis sayaca) of eastern South America.

I saw my first Blue-gray Tanager in a heavily wooded gully area on the University of Costa Rica central campus on the morning of Saturday, February 4, 2023.  I was watching a Summer Tanager when this bird decided to also show up.  I saw more of this bird later in my Costa Rica birding trip, and I will post more photos as I work on my blog post about this trip.