The blue-gray tanager has a distribution through most of northern South America, Central America and up into southern Mexico. It has a light bluish head and underparts, darker blue upperparts and a shoulder-patch with a varied color depending on which of the 14 subspecies are represented. Even the bill, legs and feet seem to be a version of bluish-black.
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| Blue-gray tanager at Amagusa Preserve in Mashpi. |
Different subspecies have different colors, particularly on the shoulder-patch. The subspecies in Tobago (T. e. berlepschi) has a brighter and darker blue on the rump and shoulder; the subspecies in northern Venezuela, Trinidad, eastern Colombia and northern Brazil (T. e. neosophilus) has a violet shoulder patch; the subspecies in the southern Amazon basin (T. e. mediana) has a white wing patch; and the subspecies in the northern Amazon (T. e. cana) has blue shoulders. The subspecies I saw (T. e. quaesita) in southwestern Colombia, western Ecuador and northwestern Peru has a turquoisish-blue shoulder patch.
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| Blue-gray tanager at Milpe Bird Sanctuary outside Mindo. |
It is widespread and common throughout its large range. For comparison, there are 516,939 observations and 11,864 photos of it on eBird. The black-chinned mountain tanager has has 3,992 and 415 and the glistening-green tanager has 5,627 and 374, respectively.
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| Blue-gray tanager at Las Terrazzas de Dana in Mindo. |
Even in a "monochromatic" bird there is a lot of variation among the blues in the wings and tail.
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