Observation d’un Piranga à tête rouge sur l’île de Bonaire

Western Tanager Piranga ludoviciana breeds in western North America. In winter, it regularly occurs from Mexico south to western Costa Rica. Individuals occasionally winter in southern parts of the breeding range and, more rarely, winter vagrants are reported in Gulf and Atlantic coastal states of the USA and in Panama.
While surveying birds on the morning of 5 July 2001, at the tiny fishing community of Playa Frans, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles, Jeffrey V. Wells and Allison Childs identified a breeding-plumaged male Western Tanager when, apparently attracted to some pooled fresh water.
This constitutes the first record of Western Tanager for the Netherlands Antilles and South America as defined by Ridgely & Tudor. It was c.5,900 km from its nearest breeding areas in west Texas and c.1,600 km from its occasional wintering range in west Panama. We surmise that this individual likely arrived on Bonaire during the most recent spring or fall migration and did not attempt to return north thereafter.