Stripe-Headed Tanagers: Fitness Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons

Summary: Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers appear in May 2019 among birdwatching attractions and among Fitness Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One icons.

male Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanager; Guzmán Arriba, Río Grande, Nothern Coastal Valley, Puerto Rico; Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011, 09:42:20: Mike's Birds, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers are among avian attractions for May birdwatchers and therefore argue for appearing among Fitness Month 2019 and, because of the Puerto Rico admission bill, Puerto Rico Five-One icons.

Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers bring fitness- and health-boosting behavior outside because of the balmy dry season between January and July in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. They convoke, as common choices for iconic, symbolic Commonwealth emblems, Puerto Rico Five-One statehood concerns communicated by the Puerto Rico Admission Act to the 116th Congress. Darren Soto, Democrat from Florida's 9th district to the United States House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., delivered the Puerto Rico Admission Act March 28, 2019.

The Puerto Rico Admission Act, if it elicits Congressional approval, ensures effectiveness, for Puerto Rico Five-One animals, people and plants, within 90 days of presidential approval.

December through June furnish the life cycles that figure maximally at three to four years for Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers with breeding months during dry seasons.

Physically and sexually mature female Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers gestate one two- to four-egg seasonal brood for grassy nests gotten together within two to seven days. Horizontal, shaded branches hold up cup-like nests, like doves', near twig forks at 4- to 75-foot (1.22- to 22.86-meter) heights above bush, shrub or tree bases. Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanager mothers-to-be incubate pale, 0.93- by 0.68-inch (23.7- by 17.3-millimeter) eggs of highly variable blotches, speckles, specks and spots 11 to 14 days.

Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanager parents juggle foraging and nestling duties in grass-, hair-, moss-, rootlet-lined nests of woven flower stalks, grasses, twigs, vines and weed stems.

Fitness Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One hatchling icons know buff-gray, downy heads, upper-sides and wings; orange-red mouths; pink skin; and yellow bellies and gape flanges.

The Passeriformes (from Latin passer, "sparrow" and -fōrmis, "shaped") order and Spindalidae (from Greek σπινδαλος, "francolin" and -ειδής, "-like") family member learns flight within 14 days. Parents maintain in-nest meals of bees, beetles, berries, buds, caterpillars, flies, fruits, larvae, moths, termites and wasps until 10- to 15-day-old fledglings move away as one-month-olds. Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers, named Spindalis portoricensis (from Greek σπινδαλος, "francolin" and Latin portorīcēnsis, "Puerto Rican"), navigate coffee plantations and national forests deliberately, directly, powerfully, swiftly.

Henry Bryant's (May 12, 1820-Feb. 2, 1867) tanagers occupy fig (Ficus), hollowheart (Iochroma arborescens), mistletoe (Phoradendron), moral (Cordia sulcata), pumpwood (Cecropia schreberiana) and umbrella-plants (Schefflera morototoni).

Olive-bodied, 0.99- to 1.45-ounce (28- to 41.1-gram) females possess 3.15- to 3.37-inch (80- to 85.5-millimeter) wingspans, 2.21- to 2.58-inch (56- to 65.5-millimeter) tails and white-streaked wings.

Orange-necked, orange-chested, 0.79- to 1.31-ounce (22.5- to 37.0-gram) males queue up 3.23- to 3.46-inch (82- to 88.5-millimeter) wingspans and 2.32- to 2.68-inch (59- to 68-millimeter) tails. Short-, thick-billed females and males reveal white-striped olive heads, olive bodies and olive-brown wings versus white-striped black heads, green bodies and white-tipped black-gray tails and wings. High-pitched males ascending from, circling, entering canopies and whispering females near ground-level share short, swift chi-chi-chi and tweet sounds through 3,280.84-foot (1,000-meter) altitudes above sea level.

Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanagers, reinas moras de bosques y plantaciones ("purple queens of forests and plantations"), travel as Fitness Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One icons.

female Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanager; Guzmán Arriba, Río Grande, Nothern Coastal Valley, Puerto Rico; Jan. 30, 2011, 09:41:23: Mike's Birds, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

male Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanager; Guzmán Arriba, Río Grande, Nothern Coastal Valley, Puerto Rico; Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011, 09:42:20: Mike's Birds, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via FLickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/pazzani/5403225223/

female Puerto Rican stripe-headed tanager; Guzmán Arriba, Río Grande, Nothern Coastal Valley, Puerto Rico; Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011, 09:41:23: Mike's Birds, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/pazzani/5403225013/

For further information:

Baicich, Paul J.; and Colin J.O. Harrison. 2005. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Princeton NJ; and Oxford, England, UK: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides. Second edition.

BirdLife International 2016. "Spindalis portoricensis." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22729102A95005948. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22729102A95005948.en.
Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22729102/95005948

Bryant, Henry. 3 January 1866. "Tanagra. Spindalis. Tanagra portoricensis." Pages 252-253. In: "A List of Birds from Porto Rico Presented to the Smithsonian Institution by Messrs. Robert Swift and George Latimer, with Descriptions of New Species or Varieties." Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History Vol. X 1864-1866. New York NY: William Wood & Co; and London, England: Trübner & Co.
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Bryant, Henry. 5 December 1866. "(Shizampelis.) Tanagra dominicensis." Page 92. In: "A List of the Birds of St. Domingo, with Descriptions of Some New Species or Varieties." Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. XI (1866-1868):89-98. New York NY: William Wood &Co.; London UK: Trübner & Co., 1868.
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Dunn Jon L.; and Jonathan Alderfer. 2017. "Stripe-headed Tanager Spindalis zena L 6 3/4" (17 cm)." National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America: 394. Seventh edition. Washington DC: National Geographic Foundation.

Garrido, O.H.; K.C. Parkes; G.B. Reynard; A. Kirkconnell; and R. Sutton. December 1997. "Taxonomy of the Stripe-Headed Tanager, Genus Spindalis (Aves: Thraupidae) of the West Indies." The Wilson Bulletin, vol. 109, no. 4: 561-800.
Available @ https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v109n04/p0561-p0594.pdf

Kemink, K. 2011. "Puerto Rican Spindalis (Spindalis portoricensis), version 1.0." In: Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Ithaca NY: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Available @ https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/purspi/overview

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 May 2019. "Puerto Rican Parrots, Fitness Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/05/puerto-rican-parrots-fitness-month-2019.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/puerto-rican-nightjars-earth-month-2019.html

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Traini, Nathan. "Western Stripe-Headed Tanager." The Birds of Cuba.
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Available @ https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/wesspi/overview

Vuilleumier, François, editor-in-chief; and Paul Sweet, consultant. 2016. American Museum of Natural History Birds of North America. Revised edition. New York NY: DK Publishing.