Hi Tweets,

Belatedly, a short comment: in terms of its plumage, male American Redstart
Setophaga ruticilla is a two-year bird in that it doesn't acquire its
black-and-orange Definitive Alternate plumage until its second Alternate
molt, but has, as ably pointed out by others, an Alternate 1 plumage only
slightly different from its Basic plumage.

It's an old line but worth hauling out again: English is our Mother Tongue,
and it's a cruel child which makes its mother cry.... '-)

As the usual terminology has the second-year Def Alt plumage as the
"official" 'Breeding' plumage and anything else the male wears as a
'Non-breeding' plumage, and the Alt 1 male is --as a recent local nesting
has shown-- fully capable of successful mating and parenting, we have the
interesting phenomenon of a breeding bird in 'non-breeding' plumage--an
avoidable semantic nonsense ranking up there with an Autumn Migration which
begins before the Summer Solstice.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery, and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)