Tangara gyrola
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days >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 |
Very likely
About 70% of wildlife watchers report a Bay-headed Tanager sighting in Chagres National Park on a given day, based on 1,456 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 5th most-seen of the 372 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September and November
In those months about 80% of wildlife watchers report a Bay-headed Tanager in Chagres National Park on a given day, against about 60% in February, April–May and July, the lowest months. Those are among Chagres National Park's wettest months, with about 280 mm of rain a month against 30 mm in February.
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.
Yes
Of the 29 parks where we can rate Bay-headed Tanager sightings, Chagres National Park has the highest daily chance: about 70%. Next come 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 Chagres National Park (genus Tangara, Tangara Tanagers) are Plain-colored Tanager (about 60%), Rufous-winged Tanager (about 30%) and Emerald Tanager (about 30%), 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 Chagres National Park (1,456 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.
