Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Com­monly known as Amer­i­can red­starts, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is a Neotrop­i­cal mi­grant war­bler that spends por­tions of the year in both the Nearc­tic and the Neotrop­i­cal re­gions. Dur­ing the spring and sum­mer, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla breeds across much of Canada and the United States. It in­hab­its the south­ern re­gions of Canada from the east to west coast. In the United States, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla may be found in lim­ited re­gions of the north­ern Mid­west, and most states east of the Mis­sis­sippi River. Ex­clu­sions in­clude por­tions of Ken­tucky, Ten­nessee, Florida, Geor­gia, and North and South Car­olina. This species mi­grates bian­nu­ally across much of the United States and Cen­tral Amer­ica to reach its win­ter­ing grounds in south­ern Cen­tral and north­west­ern South Amer­ica. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla also over­win­ters on many Caribbean is­lands in­clud­ing Ja­maica and Cuba. (Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • introduced
• neotropical
  • introduced

Habi­tat

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla se­lects vary­ing habi­tats de­pend­ing on the sea­son and ge­o­graphic lo­ca­tion. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son, this war­bler in­hab­its open-canopy, mostly de­cid­u­ous forests, sec­ond growth, and for­est edge across much of the United States and south­ern Canada. This in­sec­tiv­o­rous bird often shares its for­ag­ing habi­tats with other war­blers, and is found feed­ing in the mid to lower re­gions of a tree or shrub. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla prefers to build its nest well within dense shrubs or the fork of a low tree, and males will se­lect ter­ri­to­ries that con­tain sev­eral of these po­ten­tial nest sites.

Dur­ing mi­gra­tion, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla stopover in dense shrubby habi­tats where food is abun­dant. On their win­ter­ing grounds in Cen­tral and South Amer­ica, this war­bler may be found in nearly all woody habi­tats but tend to avoid non-forested agri­cul­tural areas. It is often found in shade-grown cof­fee plan­ta­tions which pro­vide na­tive trees and shrubs, as well as cof­fee trees. El­e­va­tions oc­cu­pied vary by lo­ca­tion, as this species may be found at el­e­va­tions up to 3,000 m in South Amer­ica, but only up to 1,500 in Ja­maica. Dur­ing the non-breed­ing sea­son, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is in­flu­enced by strong dom­i­nance hi­er­ar­chies that re­sult in sex­ual habi­tat seg­re­ga­tion. Older males ex­hibit the most dom­i­nant be­hav­ior and will oc­cupy pre­ferred, re­source-abun­dant habi­tats (man­groves). Fe­males and other sub­or­di­nate in­di­vid­u­als are thus re­stricted to lower qual­ity habi­tats (scrub), which re­sults in greater mass loss and lower sur­vivor­ship rates dur­ing the non-breed­ing sea­son. Stud­ies have shown that in pre­ferred habi­tats, sex ratio is 3:2 (mostly males) while in lower qual­ity the ratio is 1:3 (mostly fe­males). (Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Marra and Holmes, 2001; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest
• scrub forest

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural

• Range elevation

  3,000 (high) m

  ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is a smaller war­bler mea­sur­ing 13.3 cm in length and weigh­ing 8.3 g. Adult males have mostly black up­per­parts with bold patches of or­ange. The sides of breast, bases of wing feath­ers, and bases of the outer tail feath­ers fea­ture large patches of bright or­ange. The belly and un­der­tail coverts are white. Adult fe­males fea­ture the same pat­tern, but have mostly gray up­per­parts with patches of bright yel­low or or­ange in older fe­males. They have olive-col­ored backs and the wings and tail feath­ers are a darker gray than the head. Throat, belly, and un­der­tail coverts are pale gray to white. First year males closely re­sem­ble fe­males and will ob­tain adult male plumage after the first breed­ing sea­son. Fe­males and young males may also fea­ture a slight white eye-ring and pale su­per­cil­lium. All sexes and ages have black legs, feet and bills. The short bill is very sim­i­lar to in­sect-eat­ing fly­catch­ers in being rel­a­tively flat and sur­rounded by ric­tal bris­tles. ("Na­tional Ge­o­graphic Com­plete Birds of North Amer­ica", 2006; Sherry and Holmes, 1997; Sib­ley, 2000)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently
• male more colorful

• Range mass

  6 to 9 g

  0.21 to 0.32 oz

• Average mass

  8.3 g

  0.29 oz

• Range length

  11 to 14 cm

  4.33 to 5.51 in

• Average length

  13.3 cm

  5.24 in

• Average wingspan

  19.7 cm

  7.76 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Like most war­blers, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is pre­dom­i­nantly monog­a­mous with rare cases of polygamy. Three stages of courtship have been de­scribed: pair-for­ma­tion, pre-nest build­ing, and nest build­ing. Pair-for­ma­tion typ­i­cally be­gins im­me­di­ately after fe­males ar­rive on the breed­ing grounds. Males aeri­ally chase po­ten­tial mates, who will only fly a short dis­tance and then per­form a tail-spread­ing dis­play and give harsh chip notes. Once es­tab­lished, pairs will visit po­ten­tial nest sites within the male's ter­ri­tory. Nest sites are se­lected by fe­males, and males will closely fol­low fe­males dur­ing this pe­riod, pre­sum­ably to guard them from other males. Males give two main types of dis­plays dur­ing nest-build­ing: fluff dis­plays and bow dis­plays. Fluff dis­plays in­volve rais­ing the feath­ers on the head and back, while feath­ers are sleek for bow dis­plays and the male will lower his body to the ground while keep­ing his head ver­ti­cal and tail spread. (Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Ficken, 1963; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Mating System
• monogamous

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is a Neotrop­i­cal mi­grant that trav­els to North Amer­ica to breed in the spring. Courtship and pair-for­ma­tion be­gins within a week of the ar­rival of fe­males, which oc­curs from mid- to late May. After a pair has formed, the fe­male alone se­lects the nest site which is typ­i­cally up against a tree trunk, hid­den in dense veg­e­ta­tion. The cup-shaped nest con­sists of tightly-wo­ven, fine ma­te­ri­als such as grass, feath­ers, roots, birch bark, or an­i­mal hair. Once the nest is com­plete, the fe­male lays be­tween 2 and 5 white or cream-col­ored eggs which are speck­led with vary­ing amounts of brown. The clutch is in­cu­bated by the fe­male for 10 to 13 days. The young fledge after 9 days in the nest, and may re­main with one par­ent for up to 3 weeks after fledg­ing. First-year males are able to re­pro­duce dur­ing their first breed­ing sea­son, but they re­tain the fe­male-like plumage which may con­tribute to low re­pro­duc­tive suc­cess (less than 50% of first-year males) until year 2. In con­trast, most first-year fe­males suc­cess­fully re­pro­duce dur­ing their first breed­ing sea­son. There is ev­i­dence for a skewed sex ratio that re­sults in a sur­plus of un­mated males. (Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  American redstarts breed once yearly

• Breeding season

  The breeding season for American redstarts occurs from mid- or late May through the end of July

• Range eggs per season

  2 to 5

• Average eggs per season

  4

• Range time to hatching

  10 to 13 days

• Average time to hatching

  12 days

• Average fledging age

  9 days

• Range time to independence

  3 (high) weeks

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  <1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  <1 years

Male Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla are very ter­ri­to­r­ial and will ac­tively de­fend their ter­ri­to­ries, mates, and young. Fe­males se­lect a suit­able nest­ing site and con­struct the en­tire nest alone. Once eggs are laid, fe­males also per­form all in­cu­ba­tion for an av­er­age of 12 days. The young are al­tri­cial at birth and thus re­quire sig­nif­i­cant parental in­vest­ment. The help­less hatch­lings are brooded by the fe­male alone, as the male lacks a brood patch. Both par­ents par­tic­i­pate equally in feed­ing the young, and each mate makes be­tween 4 and 13 feed­ing trips per hour. Both par­ents also re­move fecal sacs from the nest to re­duce pre­da­tion and keep san­i­tary nest con­di­tions. After the young fledge at 9 days of age, each par­ent typ­i­cally cares for cer­tain off­spring only. The two par­ents often sep­a­rate with their re­spec­tive young, al­though the male typ­i­cally stays near the nest site. (Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

One study has demon­strated a cor­re­la­tion be­tween male col­oration and level of parental in­vest­ment. Male Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla that fea­tured brighter or­ange col­oration on the flanks made sig­nif­i­cantly more trips to the nest and over­all spent more time at the nest. There­fore, male flank col­oration may play a role in sex­ual se­lec­tion and may ex­plain why first-year males have low lev­els of re­pro­duc­tive suc­cess until they ob­tain their adult, black and or­ange col­oration. (Ger­main, et al., 2010)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• male parental care
• female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

The old­est Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla on record was a male banded in adult plumage (mak­ing it at least 2 years old) which was re-cap­tured ap­prox­i­mately 9 years later, mak­ing it at least 10 years old. There is ev­i­dence that many fe­males live to be at least 5. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is not kept in cap­tiv­ity and thus there is no data for cap­tive lifes­pan. An­nual sur­vival rates are es­ti­mated to be be­tween 50 and 60%. Fe­males are thought to suf­fer a slightly higher mor­tal­ity rate as they spend sig­nif­i­cantly more time on the nest (brood­ing) and are often con­sumed by nest preda­tors. (Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  10 (high) years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  5 to 10 days

Be­hav­ior

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is a Neotrop­i­cal war­bler that makes a bian­nual jour­ney be­tween Cen­tral or South Amer­ica and the United States or Canada. It is an ac­tive species that is often glimpsed while it flits about within dense veg­e­ta­tion. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is known for it's dis­tinc­tive for­ag­ing be­hav­ior of flick­ing it's brightly col­ored tail to stir up in­sects from fo­liage. Like most Neotrop­i­cal mi­grants, this war­bler per­forms long mi­gra­tions at night but is di­ur­nal out­side of the mi­gra­tory pe­riod. It is a highly ter­ri­to­r­ial species, and will vig­or­ously de­fend ter­ri­tory dur­ing the breed­ing and non-breed­ing sea­sons. Dur­ing the non-breed­ing sea­son, higher-ranked males will oc­cupy higher qual­ity habi­tats such as moist man­groves. Fe­males and sub­or­di­nate males are chased out to habi­tats of lower qual­ity in­clud­ing dry scrub forests. Males that are higher in the hi­er­ar­chy typ­i­cally are older, have more ex­ten­sive black bibs, and brighter or­ange col­oration. Likely due to it's highly ter­ri­to­r­ial na­ture, this species is rarely seen with more than one other Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla. How­ever, dur­ing mi­gra­tion it will often join multi-species groups. (Marra and Holmes, 2001; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• migratory
• solitary
• territorial
• dominance hierarchies

• Range territory size

  0.01 (high) km^2

Home Range

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla typ­i­cally de­fends a breed­ing ter­ri­tory of less than 1 hectare. Size may vary with habi­tat qual­ity, pop­u­la­tion den­sity, and age of de­fend­ing male. (Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla pri­mar­ily uses vocal and vi­sual forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Male Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla give dis­tinc­tive songs which are used to de­fend ter­ri­tory or at­tract mates. Songs of this species are highly vari­able but are gen­er­ally rapid and high pitched. Songs may re­peat the same 1 or 2 phrases or have 2 to 8 dif­fer­ent phrases given in rapid suc­ces­sion. Some songs end in an ac­cented, ter­mi­nal note while oth­ers sim­ply end un­ac­cented. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla uses these dif­fer­ent song types to com­mu­ni­cate in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. Re­peated songs with ac­cented end­ings are typ­i­cally used for at­tract­ing mates, or while males are in close prox­im­ity to their mates. Un­mated males usu­ally use only this song type. After males se­cure a mate, they then switch to singing se­r­ial songs to de­fend their ter­ri­to­ries against neigh­bor­ing birds. Like many birds, a sig­nif­i­cant amount of song vari­a­tion is due to local di­alects. Many Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla in­di­vid­u­als can be iden­ti­fied by dis­tinct char­ac­ter­is­tics of their song such as pat­tern, fre­quency, or dis­tinc­tive syl­la­bles. Males of this species can quickly learn the songs of neigh­bor­ing ri­vals and in­cor­po­rate them into their own songs, lead­ing to unique neigh­bor­hood di­alects.

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla also uses body pos­tures and move­ments as com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Dur­ing courtship, males will often chase po­ten­tial mates in a some­what ag­gres­sive man­ner and in­ter­ested fe­males will re­spond by fly­ing a short dis­tance, then giv­ing a tail-spread­ing dis­play. Males often give two types of dis­plays to­wards fe­males: fluff dis­plays and bows. Fluff dis­plays con­sist of fluff­ing the body feath­ers, par­tic­u­larly the bright or­ange flanks. There is ev­i­dence that brighter or­ange flanks cor­re­late to higher lev­els of male parental in­vest­ment, and rais­ing these feath­ers may serve to ad­ver­tise parental qual­ity. Bow dis­plays are typ­i­cally given later in courtship, when a male sleeks his feath­ers, low­ers his breast to the ground, and holds his head ver­ti­cally.

This species is highly ter­ri­to­r­ial year-round and em­ploys song, body pos­tures, and aer­ial at­tacks to deter in­trud­ers. As dis­cussed above, males often ad­ver­tise ter­ri­tory bound­aries through singing, but fe­males also give a va­ri­ety of chips and short notes to­wards in­trud­ers. Both males and fe­males as­sume threat­en­ing body pos­tures in­clud­ing head-for­ward dis­plays with droop­ing wings and bill agape, and tail-spread­ing dis­plays with tail held near ver­ti­cally. Males also give a wings-out dis­play where they raise and spread their wings, likely to dis­play the or­ange wing patches. Males also make dis­tinc­tive cir­cling flights dur­ing ter­ri­to­r­ial dis­putes. Two neigh­bor­ing males (oc­ca­sion­ally fe­males) will al­ter­nate short, de­lib­er­ate, cir­cling flights in pur­suit of each other.

Like most birds, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla per­ceives the en­vi­ron­ment through au­di­tory, vi­sual, tac­tile, and chem­i­cal stim­uli. (Ficken, 1962; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is nearly ex­clu­sively in­sec­tiv­o­rous, but will oc­ca­sion­ally con­sume berries or seeds dur­ing the fall when in­sect abun­dance de­creases. Mor­pho­log­i­cally, the flat­tened beak and ric­tal bris­tles are sim­i­lar to old and new world fly­catch­ers (Mus­c­i­cap­i­dae and Tyran­nidae, re­spec­tively) and thus these species share sim­i­lar for­ag­ing be­hav­iors and diets. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla em­ploys the fo­liage glean­ing method to cap­ture prey and often flicks its brightly-pat­terned tail to flush sta­tion­ary prey. Fly­ing prey is then pur­sued and caught aeri­ally, after which the bird lands on a dif­fer­ent perch than it alighted from. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is known for highly en­er­getic for­ag­ing habits and is often seen rapidly hop­ping through all heights of veg­e­ta­tion. It prefers to for­age from twigs and branches ver­sus tree trunks or limbs. Over­all, this species is a very flex­i­ble, op­por­tunis­tic feeder that can eas­ily adapt to vary­ing habi­tat, sea­son, in­sect com­mu­nity, veg­e­ta­tion struc­ture, and time of day. Diet con­sists largely of cater­pil­lars, moths, flies, leafhop­pers and plan­thop­pers, small wasps, bee­tles, aphids, stone­flies, and spi­ders. Few berries and seeds are con­sumed, but are most often from bar­berry (Berberis), ser­vice­berry (Ame­lanchier), and mag­no­lia (Mag­no­lia). (Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore

• Animal Foods
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• fruit

Pre­da­tion

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is vul­ner­a­ble to both ter­res­trial and aer­ial preda­tors. High­est rates of pre­da­tion occur dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son when eggs and help­less nestlings are abun­dant and easy prey for ter­res­trial preda­tors. Fe­males mostly brood dur­ing this pe­riod and thus often fall prey to nest preda­tors. Com­mon ter­res­trial preda­tors in­clude red squir­rels, fish­ers, east­ern chip­munks, black bears, fly­ing squir­rels, fox snakes, and do­mes­tic cats. Aer­ial preda­tors take nestlings, eggs, or even adults in flight. Pos­si­ble aer­ial preda­tors in­clude jaegers, blue jays, com­mon ravens, north­ern saw-whet owls, com­mon grack­les, north­ern goshawks, and sharp-shinned hawks, and Cooper's hawks. (Mc­Cal­lum and Han­non, 2001; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Known Predators

  • red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)
  • fishers (Martes pennanti)
  • eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus)
  • black bears (Ursus americanus)
  • flying squirrels (Glaucomys)
  • fox snakes (Pantherophis gloydi)
  • domestic cats (Felis catus)
  • jaegers (Stercorarius)
  • blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata)
  • common ravens (Corvus corax)
  • northern saw-whet owls (Aegolius acadicus)
  • common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula)
  • Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii)
  • northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis)
  • sharp-shinned hawks (Accipiter striatus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

As an in­sec­ti­vore, Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla con­sumes sig­nif­i­cant amounts of in­sects and likely has an im­pact on local in­sect com­mu­ni­ties. This species also con­sumes small amounts of fruits and seeds dur­ing the fall which may con­tribute to seed dis­tri­b­u­tion for the plant species it feeds upon. Eggs, nestlings, and adults are con­sumed by a wide va­ri­ety of preda­tors. Like many birds, this species is host to sev­eral ec­topar­a­sites in­clud­ing three lice species and one tick. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is a com­mon host for brown-headed cow­birds and cur­rently will ac­cept and suc­cess­fully raise cow­bird chicks. Pop­u­la­tions of Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla that are ex­posed to Molothrus ater will react more ag­gres­sively to adults than pop­u­la­tions that have en­coun­tered them less often. (Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is a com­mon vis­i­tor to shade-grown cof­fee plan­ta­tions in Cen­tral and South Amer­ica. These in­sec­tiv­o­rous war­blers are at­tracted to the ample veg­e­ta­tion pro­vided on these plan­ta­tions and will con­sume large amounts of crop pests. This species, along with other in­sec­ti­vores, help to re­duce farmer re­liance on pes­ti­cides. (Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• Positive Impacts
• controls pest population

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse ef­fects of Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is listed as least con­cern by the In­ter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture and Nat­ural Re­sources (IUCN) an ac­count of its wide ge­o­graphic range and rel­a­tively sta­ble pop­u­la­tion size. Re­cent pop­u­la­tion data how­ever, has shown this species to be in slight de­cline and num­bers should be mon­i­tored closely in the fu­ture. Like many de­clin­ing Neotrop­i­cal mi­grants, this species likely suf­fers from habi­tat loss on both the win­ter­ing and breed­ing grounds. The main causes for habi­tat loss is log­ging for human con­ver­sion of land to urban or res­i­den­tial areas. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla also prefers shrubby, early-suc­ces­sional habi­tats which nat­u­rally age and progress to ma­ture forests which are less suit­able. This species also suf­fers sig­nif­i­cant fa­tal­i­ties from im­pacts with man-made struc­tures dur­ing night mi­gra­tion. Over four fall mi­gra­tions, two tow­ers in Florida ac­counted for over 1,600 Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla deaths. Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla is also a com­mon host for brown-headed cow­birds which de­crease re­pro­duc­tive suc­cess. Cur­rently, there are few con­ser­va­tion ef­forts being made for this species, as it is still of least con­cern. In gen­eral, ef­forts are being made to cre­ate sus­tain­able log­ging prac­tices that sup­port the cre­ation of early-suc­ces­sional habi­tat. Sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices, such as shade-grown cof­fee, are be­com­ing more preva­lent on Cen­tral and South Amer­i­can coun­tries that strike a bal­ance be­tween agri­cul­ture and pro­vid­ing habi­tat for song­birds. Many local Audubon chap­ters are pro­mot­ing "lights out" cam­paigns that work with busi­nesses to turn lights off in large sky­scrap­ers dur­ing peak mi­gra­tion sea­son, which re­duces mi­grat­ing bird col­li­sions and fa­tal­i­ties. (Sherry and Holmes, 1997)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  Protected

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Rachelle Ster­ling (au­thor), Spe­cial Pro­jects, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, George Ham­mond (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff, Tri­cia Jones (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, ADW Zookeeper (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

2006. Na­tional Ge­o­graphic Com­plete Birds of North Amer­ica. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: Na­tional Ge­o­graphic So­ci­ety.

Ehrlich, P., D. Dobkin, D. Wheye. 1988. The Birder's Hand­book: A Field Guide to the Nat­ural His­tory of North Amer­i­can Birds. New York, NY: Simon and Schus­ter.

Ficken, M. 1962. Ag­o­nis­tic be­hav­ior and ter­ri­tory in the Amer­i­can Red­start. The Auk, 79: 607-632.

Ficken, M. 1963. Courtship of the Amer­i­can Red­start. The Auk, 80: 307-317.

Ger­main, R., M. Reudink, P. Marra, L. Rat­cliffe. 2010. Carotenoid-based Male Plumage Pre­dicts Parental In­vest­ment in the Amer­i­can Red­start. The Wil­son Jour­nal of Or­nithol­ogy, 122/2: 318-325.

Marra, P., R. Holmes. 2001. Con­se­quences of dom­i­nance-me­di­ated habi­tat seg­re­ga­tion in Amer­i­can red­starts dur­ing the non­breed­ing sea­son. The Auk, 118/1: 92-104.

Mc­Cal­lum, C., S. Han­non. 2001. Ac­cip­iter pre­da­tion of Amer­i­can red­start nestlings. The Con­dor, 103/1: 192-194.

Sherry, T., R. Holmes. 1997. "Amer­i­can Red­start (Se­tophaga ru­ti­cilla)" (On-line). The Birds of North Amer­ica On­line. Ac­cessed June 13, 2011 at http://​bna.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​bna/​species/​277.

Sib­ley, D. 2000. The Sib­ley's Guide to Birds. New York: Al­fred A. Knopf, Inc.