Thraupis episcopus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The blue-gray tanager (Thraupis episcopus) is a medium-sized South American songbird of the tanager family, Thraupidae. Its range is from Mexico south to northeast Bolivia and northern Brazil, all of the Amazon Basin, except the very south. It has been introduced to Lima (Peru) and Florida (United States). On Trinidad and Tobago, this bird is called blue jean.
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue-gray tanager in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Brazil. He used the French name L'evesque and the Latin name Episcopus avis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson in his Ornithologie. One of these was the blue-gray tanager. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Tanagra episcopus, and cited Brisson's work. The specific name episcopus is Latin for "bishop". It was placed in the genus Thraupis... Wikipedia →
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Zoo Miami | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Brookfield Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Sedgwick County Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Parque Municipal Summit | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 6 | Louisville Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Berlin Zoological Garden | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 8 | Woodland Park Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Houston Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | San Antonio Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 11 | Philadelphia Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 12 | Ueno Zoo | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 13 | El Paso Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 14 | Lincoln Park Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 15 | Aviario Nacional de Colombia | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 16 | Como Park Zoo and Conservatory | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 17 | Como Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 18 | The Living Planet Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 19 | Staten Island Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 20 | Tracy Aviary | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 21 | Central Park Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 22 | Parque museo La Venta | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 23 | Aquarium Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 24 | Dallas World Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 25 | National Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-gray Tanager sighting in Tortuguero National Park on a given day, based on 1,486 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 20th most-seen of the 348 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January, March–April and July
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-gray Tanager in Tortuguero National Park on a given day, against about 30% in September and November, the lowest months.
Between 1 and 4 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Blue-gray 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.
21st of 67
Of the 67 parks where we can rate Blue-gray Tanager sightings, Tortuguero National Park ranks 21st at about 40%. The best odds are in Poás Volcano National Park (Costa Rica, about 80%), Main Ridge Forest Reserve (Trinidad and Tobago, about 70%) and Chagres National Park (Panama, about 70%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Blue-gray Tanager is recorded against all the birds logged in Tortuguero National Park (1,486 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.
