{"id":163163,"date":"2026-04-11T10:31:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/163163\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T10:31:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:31:47","slug":"pa-may-name-scarlet-tanager-as-official-migratory-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/163163\/","title":{"rendered":"PA may name Scarlet tanager as official \u2018migratory bird\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This story is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/whyy-news-climate-desk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n<p>From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>New Jersey flaunts the bright yellow goldfinch as its state bird. Delaware has its Blue Hen.\n<\/p>\n<p>The red cardinal, the overachiever of all state birds, is claimed by Virginia and six other states.\n  <\/p>\n<p>And Pennsylvania? Well, it\u2019s the only U.S. state without a designated state bird. But that could soon change.\n<\/p>\n<p>About 100 years after the General Federation of Women\u2019s Clubs petitioned states to designate state birds \u2014 and flowers \u2014 the Keystone state could finally get its own designated bird \u2014 or, sort of.\n<\/p>\n<p>State lawmakers have introduced legislation to assign the scarlet tanager as the state\u2019s official \u201cmigratory bird.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The colorful songbird makes its way from South America to Pennsylvania to breed in the state\u2019s forests.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoes that mean we\u2019re in a situation where we still don\u2019t have a state bird?\u201d said David Toews, a biology professor at Pennsylvania State University who has researched song birds.\n<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvanians claimed the ruffed grouse as the state\u2019s official \u201cgame bird.\u201d Bird enthusiasts say they are happy about adding a \u201cmigratory bird.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of love for the grouse. There\u2019s a long history of conservation and hunting culture in Pennsylvania. It\u2019s the sort of logo of the Game Commission,\u201d Toews said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone wants to knock the grouse off its pedestal, but if there\u2019s room for two, I would say the scarlet tanager is an absolutely wonderful bird, deserving to be a pair for Pennsylvania.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>What is a scarlet tanager?<\/p>\n<p>Each spring, scarlet tanagers travel from South America to the eastern United States and parts of Canada to breed, before migrating back in early fall.\n<\/p>\n<p>An estimated 13% of the breeding population of scarlet tanagers is found in Pennsylvania, mostly in the state\u2019s large forests. In the Philadelphia region, they can be found in Wissahickon Valley Park and Pennypack Park.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5537,28,30,29,5206],"class_list":["post-163163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-birds","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}