Painted Redstart

About the Painted Redstart

The Painted Redstart is arguably the showiest warbler in North America: coal black with a scarlet breast and bold white wing patches that it flashes constantly. The flashing is not vanity. By fanning its wings and tail as it works a tree trunk, the redstart startles hidden insects into moving, then snaps them up.

In the United States this Mexican mountain warbler reaches only the sky-island canyons of Arizona, New Mexico, and far West Texas. In Texas it is a prized find in the Davis, Chisos, and Guadalupe Mountains.

These photographs come from Tobe Canyon in the Davis Mountains Preserve, where a family of redstarts worked the oaks all morning.