Another warbler, but this one is real.

The painted redstart (Myioboris pictus) of the U.S. Southwest and Central America is a famous singer, unusual among warblers because both males and females sing and perform duets during courtship.

Black and red with white accents, he has a white spot below his eye that’s similar in shape and position to the eye-black that football players wear to reduce glare.  I wonder if it has the same function.

Though not closely related to the American redstart, he also has white edges on his tail and flairs them as his eastern namesake does.  But he’s not a redstart, he’s a “whitestart” with many Central and South American relatives in the Myioborus genus.

Redstart?  Whitestart?  What shall we call him?

He’s always “Painted.”

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

The olive warbler (Peucedramus taeniatus) was so hard to classify that he was removed from New World Warblers (Dendroica, now called Setophaga) in 1875 to a genus of his own.  This made him the only member of a genus found only in North and Central America.

The genus Peucedramus ranges from Arizona and New Mexico to Nicaragua, precisely where the olive warbler lives.

This level of uniqueness is troubling to biologists.  Every animal is descended from others so who were this bird’s ancestors?  Doesn’t he belong in some other group?

DNA testing confirmed that he’s not really a warbler but his characteristics are still hard enough to place that arguments continue.  He might be a finch or a sparrow or even an Old World Warbler (as are kinglets and gnatcatchers).

But he looks like a warbler and if you want to see him in the U.S. you have to visit where he lives.

Don’t look for him at Cornell Lab’s All About Birds website.  He’s not there!

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)