Flame-Colored Tanager

I consider it a privilege to have spent three days in southeastern Arizona with an amazing bird guide and to have become acquainted with some of the best birding in the United States. The more I read about the birds and area I've been introduced to, the more I appreciate what it is. As I read about the flame-colored tanager, Wikipedia notes, subspecies bidentata (of the flame-colored tanager) is principally found in Sonora and Chihuahua south to Guerrero and east to near Mexico City. "It occasionally reaches southern Arizona and less frequently western Texas."  Birds of the World states, it "is widespread and common in the highlands of Central America, from northern Mexico south to western Panama...[I]t is a rare visitor to the mountains of the southwestern United States." Then my mind jumps to the jaguar, which is also an occasional and rare visitor to this same area and the area gains almost a mythical quality to it. 

This bird is clearly a male flame-colored tanager. 

But it was accompanied by this bird which is not clearly a female flame-colored tanager. In fact, iNaturalist registers it as a hepatic tanager and flame-colored tanager is not on the list. But now I am leaning that way. My next post will be on the hepatic tanager and hopefully throw a little bit more light on it. 

Illustration of a female, ssp. bidentata, from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a male, ssp. bidentata, from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World. Note the small area in southern Arizona where it is resident.