Conspicuously Yellow and Orange 
Redstart 
(Setopbaga ruticilla) Wood Warbler family 
Called also: YELLOW-TAILED WARBLER 
Length — 5 to 5.5 inches. 
Male — In spring plumage: Head, neck, back, and middle breast 
glossy black, with blue reflections. Breast and underneath 
white, slightly flushed with salmon, increasing to bright 
salmon-orange on the sides of the body and on the wing 
linings. Occasional specimens show orange-red. Tail feath- 
ers partly black, partly orange, with broad black band across 
the end. Orange markings on wings. Bill and feet black. 
In autumn : Fading into rusty black, olive, and yellow. 
Female — Olive-brown, and yellow where the male is orange. 
Young browner than the females. 
Range — North America to upper Canada. West occasionally, as 
far as the Pacific coast, but commonly found in summer in 
the Atlantic and Middle States. 
Migrations — Early May. End of September. Summer resident. 
Late some evening, early in May, when one by one the birds 
have withdrawn their voices from the vesper chorus, listen for 
the lingering " ’tsee, ’tsee/tseet ” (usually twelve times repeated 
in a minute), that the redstart sweetly but rather monotonously 
sings from the evergreens, where, as his tiny body burns in the 
twilight, Mrs. Wright likens him to a “wind-blown firebrand, 
half glowing, half charred.” 
But by daylight this brilliant little warbler is constantly on 
the alert. It is true he has the habit, like the flycatchers (among 
which some learned ornithologists still class him), of sitting pen- 
sively on a branch, with fluffy feathers and drooping wings; but 
the very next instant he shows true warbler blood by making a 
sudden dash upward, then downward through the air, tumbling 
somersaults, as if blown by the wind, flitting from branch to 
branch, busily snapping at the tiny insects hidden beneath the 
leaves, clinging to the tree-trunk like a creeper, and singing 
between bites. 
Possibly he will stop long enough in his mad chase to open 
and shut his tail, fan-fashion, with a dainty egotism that, in the 
peacock, becomes rank vanity. 
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