Tangara gyrola
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week ~90%
The bay-headed tanager (Tangara gyrola) is a medium-sized passerine bird. This tanager is a resident breeder in Costa Rica, Panama, South America south to Ecuador, Bolivia, and north-western Brazil, and on Trinidad. The bay-headed tanager was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Fringilla gyrola. The specific epithet is a diminutive of the Latin gyrus meaning "ring". Linnaeus based his own description on the "red-headed green-finch" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist George Edwards in 1743 in his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. The type locality is Suriname. The bay-headed tanager is now placed in the genus Tangara that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.
Nine subspecies are recognised: Wikipedia →
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Basel Zoo | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | |
| 2 | Tierpark Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 3 | California Academy of Sciences | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Woodland Park Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Eindhoven Zoo | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 6 | La Paz Waterfall Gardens | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 7 | Dallas World Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | National Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Bay-headed Tanager sighting in Arenal Volcano National Park on a given day, based on 5,169 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 42nd most-seen of the 503 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October and December–February
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Bay-headed Tanager in Arenal Volcano National Park on a given day, against about 20% in May to July, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Bay-headed Tanager sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
5th of 29
Of the 29 parks where we can rate Bay-headed Tanager sightings, Arenal Volcano National Park ranks 5th at about 30%. The best odds are in Chagres National Park (Panama, about 70%), Henri Pittier National Park (Venezuela, about 50%) and Farallones de Cali National Natural Park (Colombia, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Tangara
The closest relatives of the Bay-headed Tanager that you can see in Arenal Volcano National Park (genus Tangara, Tangara Tanagers) are Emerald Tanager (about 30%), Silver-throated Tanager (about 30%) and Rufous-winged Tanager (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Bay-headed Tanager is recorded against all the birds logged in Arenal Volcano National Park (5,169 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
