The Other Redstart

Birders tend to speak in shorthand, and the codes we use vary from region to region. In the east, for example, we call out “nuthatch” and mean White-breasted; in the mountain west, the generic term refers to Red-breasted, a bird that always gets its full moniker in other parts of the country where it is for the most part an eagerly awaited winter visitor.

Since our move to southeast Arizona, I’ve made this and dozens of other adjustments well enough, I think, but it has taken me a long time to get casual about Painted Redstart. It just seems that the bird deserves all four syllables. But finally, these last few months I’ve found myself able to imitate the local birders when I’m confronted with one of the glowing beauties, tossing off a simple “start” and swallowing the rest of the name.

This morning I joined a great walk to Cienega Creek, well and ably led by Don with expert assistance from Denis. The group was a manageable 12, but the trails narrow, and from the back of the line I could hear only bits and snatches of identifications, a drift of names, ages, and sexes. But clarity returned when I heard Linda utter not four, not five, but six syllables, with a decided exclamation point at the end: American Redstart! I’d seen only a couple in the state before, a female and a first-year male, and here we were watching an astoundingly beautiful adult male flash his orange tail patches low in the shade of the mesquite bosque. Viewed through the lens of the exotic, this bird made me regret all those days in the east and midwest when I’d walked past his conspecifics, and I’ll never let another one pass, I’m sure, with the single syllable “start.”