How’s this for a plan? Spend the summer months in southern Canada or the eastern United States and when the weather starts to get a little nippy, fly down to Costa Rica for the winter. This may be the exact life plan of a few of the folks reading this article right now. It’s also the life plan of the prothonotary warbler.
The prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea) is called the reinita cabecidorada in Spanish. The Spanish name gets right to the point. Reinita translates to warbler and cabecidorada translates to golden-headed. That’s a good name for a species of warbler with a bright yellow/golden head.
The English name is commenting on the same golden head but in a roundabout church-related sort of way. Prothonotaries are papal clerks in the Roman Catholic Church who once wore yellow robes apparently similar in color to the bright plumage of this little bird. I suppose an old-school, religion-based reference is fine for the name, but …