Every winter, gardeners pull out seed catalogs to dream of
the possibilities the coming season might hold. I’ve always used my field
guides for that. When I started birding, the pages of my Golden Guide were
filled with an array of improbably exquisite and comical and funky birds that I
couldn’t imagine existed in the real world, much less right in the Chicago area
where I grew up. One of the birds I instantly focused on as a most-yearned-for
species was the Prothonotary Warbler--a lovely Southeastern bird with intensely
golden-yellow head, neck, and breast, offset to perfection by bluish-gray wings
and snow-white lower belly and undertail coverts. This bird seemed too striking
for me to have overlooked it my whole life, yet when I learned to pay attention
to the world around me, I found a Prothonotary Warbler singing away at the edge
of a Jewel-Osco supermarket parking lot bordering one of the creeks in an
industrial Chicago suburb.
Of course, these glowing creatures are more typically found
in wilder river bottomlands and swamps, but when a friend of mine placed a
decorative copper teakettle on his cabin door in La Crosse, Wisconsin, a pair
of Prothonotary Warblers successfully raised five or six chicks in the tiny decoration
for at least a few years in a row.
Predation is the main way that Prothonotary
Warblers lose their chicks--this nest would be hard for snakes to access, and
most other nest predators are reluctant to come so close to human habitation.
Of all the places I’ve seen Prothonotary Warblers over the
years, the place where they are the most conspicuous to see and photograph is
along the Magee Marsh Boardwalk, at the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, managed by the Ohio DNR. In the two springs I’ve spent
time at the birding festival called the Biggest Week in American Birding, I’ve seen
these golden warblers singing, feeding, inspecting possible nest sites, and
actually nesting in conspicuous places, often at eye level. Birders fill the
boardwalk constantly from sunrise until sunset every day in May, and the birds seem
to consider us an innocuous presence to be ignored, coming so close that I saw
people taking full-frame photos using inexpensive small digital cameras and
cell phones.
Prothonotary Warblers are the only eastern warblers to nest
inside tree cavities and other hidden spaces. At Magee Marsh, they squabble
over nest boxes with Tree Swallows and House Wrens. They also use cavities excavated
by Downy Woodpeckers, and the cavities left in trees after limbs fall. When we
take the time to watch them, we can see them inspecting all kinds of crevices
and dark holes. I’m sure their beautifully large eyes make exploring these dark
places easier.
The name “Prothonotary” seemed mysterious and magical to me
as a young birder. One of my books said it was given to the species because
high papal officials called prothonotaries in the Roman Catholic Church wore
lemon yellow ecclesiastical garb, but I’ve researched the vestments of Church
officials and can’t find any reference to prothonotaries ever wearing yellow
except in accounts of how Prothonotary Warblers were named. Some government
clerks in some states such as Pennsylvania and in English courts of law are
also called prothonotaries, but again, so far I can’t find any reference to
them wearing lemon-yellow garments, either. It doesn’t matter--that which we
call a Prothonotary Warbler by any other name would be as sweet. Indeed, the
species’ song affirms this--it’s quite justifiably transcribed as “Sweet,
sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.”