WESTERN TANAGERS make their home in the evergreen and deciduous forests of the mountain ranges west of the Rockies. In voice and habits they closely resemble the Scarlet Tanager and, like that bird, frequently forsake the forest for clearings where the sun warms insect life into activity. Occasionally, when normal food is scarce, they follow the ripening cherries north thru California and cause considerable loss to orchardists. Clear-thinking fruit-growers overlook these depredations, remembering benefits in the form of insect destruction which more than compensate for fruit destruction.
Western North America from eastern Rockies to Pacific Coast; north to British Columbia, Athabasca, Montana and southwestern South Dakota; in migration south into Mexico.