Red Wine Blush - Western Tanager

Pirango ludoviciana

The southwest corner of Colorado is a part of the Four Corners region where the states of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico butt into one another. Long before there were states, the Anasazi lived and farmed in this area - a bit of a cornucopia in what would eventually be North America. Even though this area has an arid climate, modern irrigation projects now allow farming of hay and grain crops. In addition to the larger scaled features of the landscape, the natural flora and fauna found here are likely much the same today, as a millennia ago.

A vineyard near Cortez, Colorado

Apart from these that are produced, some newer venturesome entrepreneurs are planting grapes - in the present, red grapes begin to blush as they mature, a color that resembles the blushing face of the Western Tanager that seeks out the berries before they are picked. Even with protective nets covering the rows of vines, the wise bird can find a way to the fruit. The new era of farmers near Cortez are looking for ways to support themselves - more technology savy, but needing to know the lay of the land just as much today, as the Anasazi who inhabited the are more than two thousand years ago. Hopefully the land will be more resilient, so the farmers today will last as many generations.

Morphological similarity among species of Piranga as determined by UPGMA and neighbor joining analyses. Branch lengths are not proportional. The Auk 115(3):621-634, 1998 MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS OF THE GENUS PIRANGA: IMPLICATIONS FOR BIOGEOGRAPHY AND THE EVOLUTION OF MORPHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR KEVIN J. BURNS