Where Do We Start?

By Bill Chaisson
OF A FEATHER
For some reason I am worried about the American redstart (Setophaga ruticilla). I have always thought of it as a common wood warbler and yet I go for years without seeing one. And then when I see one, I just see one, and I once thought of them as being as ubiquitous as I find the chestnut-sided warbler to be now.

Earlier this week I followed an unfamiliar song to a red maple tree right next to my driveway and after searching the canopy for a while, found a little greenish bird with two yellow spots on either side of her chest. Yes, her. It was a female redstart.

This is unusual. In this species typically only the males sing, although birdsoftheworld.org allows, “both sexes utter a variety of vocalizations in diverse contexts.” They describe the male song in some detail: “see see see see, tsit tsit tsit tsit, tsee tsee tsee tsee, tsee-bit tsee-bit tsee-bit tsee-bit, tsita tsita tsita tsita, wee-see wee-see wee-see wee-see, tsee tsee tsee tseeo, or tsee tsee tsee tsiee, etc.” It can be of varying length and consist of one- or two-syllable phrases, but it generally rises and then falls in frequency. A particular bird sometimes includes only the ascending or descending arm of the song. The “accented” song ends on a definite note, while the “unaccented” song simply trails off.

Allaboutbirds.org insists the male song that consists of notes ascending in pitch and ends with an abrupt note can be described as “sneeze-like.” Happily, they also include a recorded example of the much shorter female song, which sounds something like beez, tsii, tsii, zoot. The first and fourth notes are drawn out and the second and third are more rapid.

Much is made of the beauty of the male redstart, which like the Blackburnian warbler, is a startling mix of black and orange (but no actual red). The female has a more subtle appeal. Her head is a soft gray, while her back, wings and much of her tail are a pale olive-green. She has pronounced patches of yellow on either side of her chest, smaller ones at the bases of several primary and secondary feathers, and larger ones on both sides of tail. Most of her undersides are an off-white.

It is possible I saw a first-year male, which looks very much like the female. The males do not get their distinct orange and black plumage until their second year (more specifically, after the first breeding season). The song I heard, however, did resemble the recording I found at allaboutbirds.org attributed to the female. The individual I saw also lacked the random patches of black feathers on the head, breast or back, which first-year males often have.

The males arrive on the breeding grounds first and establish territories, which they defend by singing. Mating takes place in the first few days after the females arrive. Males are polygynous, often maintaining multiple territories, each with a female on a nest. This creates an excess of young single males in the population.

The name of the American redstart confuses people. It is not red and what is a “start” anyway? It is another of those North American species named for its vague resemblance to an Old World one. The common redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) of Eurasia is related to Old World flycatchers (Muscicapidae) and is quite large, the size of a robin. It also has a red tail, “start” being an Old English word for “tail.”

The one thing the two redstarts do have in common is a broad, strong looking bill and prominent rictal bristles, usual features for birds that catch insects on the wing. In addition to flycatchers and tyrant flycatchers, these features are associated with swallows, swifts, and goatsuckers. It is, however, a bit unusual in a warbler. But American redstarts are said to live up to the “butterflies of the bird world” sobriquet better than most wood warblers because of their animated method of foraging.

Although they engage in gleaning—picking insects directly off leaves and twigs—like many other warblers, redstarts also catch much of their prey on the wing. They often carry their bright-colored, contrasting tails and wings partially spread, flicking them around in an apparent attempt to startle insects into the air.

Both the males and females feed this way, and both have the contrasting patches of color. The males simply have higher contrast. Everywhere the females are olive-green or gray, the males are black. In addition, the white throat of the females is black in the males. And the two patches of yellow on either side of female chests are orange on male chests. The patches on the wings and tail can vary in color in the males. In some individuals they are quite orange and in some quite yellow, with every shade in between also found. This is not remarked upon in descriptions but is evident in photographs of different male birds.

I need not be concerned about the future of the redstart. It did indeed decline in numbers by 1.1% each year between 1966 and 2017, but the Canadian population actually increased somewhat while the one in the United states decreased.

Research has shown that given a choice, redstarts avoid areas with human activity in their wintering grounds, but they benefit from some logging practices in their breeding grounds because thinning and patch cuts create second-growth deciduous habitat that they prefer.

They are one of the “coffee birds” that spend their winters on shade-grown coffee plantations. According to coffeehabitat.com, “In Jamaica, redstarts have been found to greatly benefit coffee farmers by

providing pest control, especially against the hard-to-control coffee berry borer, one of coffee’s most dreaded pests. To reap these benefits, however, farmers needed to provide habitat for the birds, either via shade trees or adjacent forest patches.”

Bill Chaisson has been a birdwatcher for over 50 years. He lives and works in Wilmot.