Whitestart?

[Bianca Whitedog]

There is no such thing as a "whitestart". The bird is a Painted Redstart. Astonishing that in all this time the error has not been corrected.

[ephemeraltoast]

I'm not a birdologist or anything but Wikipedia lists both names for the bird (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_redstart) and there are various bird websites that refer to it as the Painted Whitestart (http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/22721894 ; https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22721894/137115733) so my guess is that it's not an error and both names are acceptable. Apparently the bird changed genus some time ago: "When he first described the species in 1829, naturalist William John Swainson assigned it to the genus Setophaga — the same genus as that of the American redstart — where it remained for nearly a century and a half.... By the mid 1960s, researchers recommended that it be moved to its current genus, Myioborus, based on various similarities with the other whitestarts."

The American Redstart is also in the game so the name Whitestart may have been preferred by the game designers for this bird to avoid confusion between the two.

Also, if "steort" really does mean "tail"... that there is a white-sided tail, not red.

[Bianca Whitedog]

Interesting! Thanks for the info.