Fallingwater Friday: The Scarlet Tanager

A sign of the upcoming summer season is the return of the adult male scarlet tanager, a brilliant bird with black wings and tail that frequents the high canopies of eastern deciduous forests. The female scarlet tanager is olive green. In late summer and early fall, males show patchwork plumage of red and green as they molt to olive green; their wings and tail remain black. The birds winter in the tropics.

Fallingwater has long been recognized as Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece of architecture working in harmony with nature. But few people realize that the Kaufmann family, for whom Wright designed the house, were avid birdwatchers and the 5,000-acre Bear Run Nature Reserve on which Fallingwater is located is also designated as part of the Youghiogheny River “Important Bird Area” (IBA). IBA's are part of a dynamic worldwide effort to identify and protect outstanding habitats for birds. Tanagers are commonly found at the reserve.

In the summer of 2002, Finland's Oiva Toikka, a foremost glass artist visited Fallingwater and was inspired to create a collectible stylized glass bird to commerate his visit. "Fallingwater Red," an indvidually numbered collector's item, can only be found at the museum shop.

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