ABSTRACT
Tracking individual migratory birds can help researchers link populations across breeding and nonbreeding regions and explore the frequency, locations, and durations of stopovers and other stationary periods. In May–June 2014, we deployed 15 light-level geolocators on male Scarlet Tanagers (Piranga olivacea) in Pennsylvania, USA, and in 2015 we retrieved location data from a single recaptured individual. This individual used 2 disjunct stationary nonbreeding locations in South America: one near the border region of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil (57.5 d), and the other in northern Peru and the border region with Colombia and Ecuador (77 d). He exhibited a loop migration that included a likely flight over a portion of the Pacific Ocean from Ecuador/southwestern Colombia to Central America in April, and he made at least 12 multi-day (2–10.5 d) stopovers on all legs of migration, in North, Central, and South America (minimum of 6 southbound stopovers and 6 northbound stopovers). His post-breeding migration lasted approximately 32 d, the 2 stationary nonbreeding periods lasted a combined 135 d, and his pre-breeding migration lasted between 30 d and 38 d. His complex migration route, with many stopovers, highlights the need for further investigation into the full annual ecology of this declining omnivorous species.