The Painted Redstart or Whitestart (Myioborus pictus), is a species of New World warbler. 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, though one naturalist placed it in the Old World flycatcher genus Muscicapa during that time. By the mid 1960s, researchers recommended that it be moved to its current genus, Myioborus, based on various similarities with the other whitestarts. There are two subspecies, which differ only slightly in appearance:
Painted whitestarts are unusual amongst birds, and especially amongst warblers in that the female painted redstart is capable of singing just as well as a male, and during spring courtship a pair will often bond by singing together.
Painted whitestarts are common at heights between 1,500–2,500 m and will make their homes in open oak woodlands and canyons in Central America, but will also range as far north as Arizona and New Mexico in the United States, called the Madrean sky islands as well as the Mogollon Rim to the north, (southern regions of the Colorado Plateau). During the summer and winter, these birds may venture as far south as Nicaragua. In 2010, a painted redstart was found further north in California than had ever been recorded, in Auburn, CA, east of Sacramento.