Adult Description
- Medium-sized, stocky songbird.
- Large, thick, pale, cone-shaped bill.
- White flash in wings in flight.
- Male distinctive with black hood, red chest, and white belly.
Male Description
Breeding (Alternate) plumage: Rosy red triangular breast patch. Black head and upperparts, sometimes with a few brown feathers. White underparts. White patches on wing; form wingbars at rest, large white spot in flight. White spots on outermost three feathers of black tail. Red wing linings. White rump; sometimes pink, usually with some dark marks.
Nonbreeding (Basic) plumage: Similar to breeding, but black feathers on upperparts have buff tips that partially hide the black. On head they create a buff center crown-stripe and face stripes. Throat and chin mottled black and pink. Pink breast dull. Resembles female, but wings and tail are deep black with white.Female Description
Dull black crown stripes, with pale center stripe. White stripe over eye, brown face mask. Back brown with dark streaks. Chin, throat, and lower cheeks creamy white. Neck, breast, sides, and flanks cream or buff, with narrow or heavy black streaks. Amount of buff color and size and thickness of streaking is variable. Belly and under tail white. Rump olive brown. Tail brown. Two white wingbars. Some white in wings shown in flight. Yellowish to orange wing linings. Dark brown upperparts with brown streaks on breast.Immature Description
Immature similar to adult female, but wings and tail browner, breast more buffy and with more indistinct streaks. Immature fall male has brownish chest, usually with some pink, and red wing linings. First-summer male (Alternate I) similar to adult, but with more brownish wing and tail, and usually some brown body feathers.