Photo by Chris Bosak A female American redstart perches on a branch in New England, May 2020. Merganser Lake.
A Day on Merganser Lake
Like most warblers, American redstarts are dimorphic. (From Wikipedia: Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the two sexes of the same species exhibit different characteristics beyond the differences in their sexual organs.) In other words, males and females look different from each other. Females are usually duller in color so as to not attract the attention of predators. Cardinals are one of the most obvious examples. Chickadees and many other birds are sexually monomorphic. I got these shots of male and female redstarts yesterday and those terms came to mind.
Here’s the male …
Photo by Chris Bosak A male American redstart perches on a branch in New England, May 2020. Merganser Lake.
Photo by Chris Bosak An American redstart perches in a bush at Bennett’s Farm State Park in Connecticut, May 2020.
Something woke me up around 3:30 a.m. and I couldn’t fall back asleep. I gave up trying when the darkness outside my window started to brighten. What the heck, I told myself. It’s the height of warbler season so let’s go find some warblers. I made a cup of coffee and raced the rising sun to a nearby park. I headed down a path that has led to warblers in the past. It did again this time. There wasn’t a tremendous variety of warblers (maybe seven species) but the ones I did see kept me entertained.
My favorite was this American redstart that followed me along the path for an inordinate amount of time. It gave me great looks at it, but it would not sit still very well for photos. I managed a few decent shots despite his hyperactivity. A few more photos are below.
(Repeat text for context: I’m running out of COVID-19 lockdown themes so from now until things get back to some semblance of normalcy, I will simply post my best photo from the previous day. You could say it fits because of its uncertainty and challenge. I’ll call the series “A Day on Merganser Lake,” even though that’s not the real name of the lake I live near in southwestern Connecticut, it’s just a nod to my favorite duck family.)
Photo by Chris Bosak An American redstart perches in a bush at Bennett’s Farm State Park in Connecticut, May 2020.Photo by Chris Bosak
An American redstart perches on a branch at Bennett’s Farm State Park in Connecticut, May 2020.
Photo by Chris Bosak American redstart in Ridgefield, CT, summer 2019.
As summer draws to a close and fall takes over, this post will start a short series of photos that I took over the summer, but never got around to publishing. I photographed this male American Redstart in my block of the CT Breeding Bird Atlas. Click here for more information on the CT Breeding Bird Atlas.
Photo by Chris Bosak American redstart in Ridgefield, CT, summer 2019.
Photo by Chris Bosak An American redstart perches in a tree in Ridgefield, Conn., May 2019.
The American redstart is a dynamic-looking little bird with black and orange plumage. While the Baltimore oriole is predominately orange with black and white, the redstart is mostly black with orange markings on its sides, wings and outer tail edges. The redstart, of course, is also much smaller than an oriole. Redstarts are common throughout New England in brushy areas near woods. You’ll probably hear its high-pitched, rather non-musical song before seeing the handsome bird. Females and young redstarts are similarly patterned to males, but gray and yellow instead of black and orange.
Here’s the female …
Photo by Chris Bosak An American redstart perches in a tree in Ridgefield, Conn., May 2019.
