It sometimes migrates into the Carribean. The male is bright rose or orange-red throughout the year. The adult male summer tanager has no crest. The female is olive above and orange-yellow below. She has a conspicuous narrow edging of yellow on her wing coverts.
Some females gain complete male pigmentation as they advance in age.
Juvenile male summer tanagers resemble adult females, but often develop distinctive patches of red during the first winter. The summer tanager is primarily insectivorous, eating a wide variety of flying and non-flying insects, such as beetles, dragonflies, grubs, cicadas, grasshoppers, ants, caterpillars, weevils and spiders. It also eats fruits such as blackberries, whortleberries, mulberries, pokeweed, citrus and bananas, especially during the late breeding season, migration and on the winter range. However, the primary components of the summer tanager's diet are bees and wasps. It frequently attacks wasps until they abandon their nest, leaving the larvae for the tanager to devour.