Prothonotary warbler

Prothonotary warbler
Female
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Parulidae
Genus:	Protonotaria Baird, 1858
Species:	P. citrea
Binomial name
Protonotaria citrea (Boddaert, 1783)
Range of P. citrea      Breeding range     Wintering range

The prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea) is a small songbird of the New World warbler family. It is the only member of the genus Protonotaria.

Description

File:Prothonotary Warbler .jpg

Male

The prothonotary warbler is 13 cm (5.1 in) long and weighs 12.5 g (0.44 oz). It has an olive back with blue-grey wings and tail, yellow underparts, a relatively long pointed bill and black legs. The adult male has a bright orange-yellow head. Females and immature birds are duller and have a yellow head. In flight from below, the short, wide tail has a distinctive two-toned pattern, white at the base and dark at the tip.

Distribution

It breeds in hardwood swamps in extreme southeastern Ontario and eastern United States. It winters in the West Indies, Central America and northern South America. It is a rare vagrant to western states, most notably California.

Behavior and ecology

It is the only eastern warbler that nests in natural or artificial cavities, sometimes using old downy woodpecker holes. The male often builds several incomplete, unused nests in his territory; the female builds the real nest. It lays 3–7 eggs.

The preferred foraging habitat is dense, woody streams, where the prothonotary warbler forages actively in low foliage, mainly for insects and snails.

The song of this bird is a simple, loud, ringing sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet. The call is a loud, dry chip, like that of a hooded warbler. Its flight call is a loud seeep.

Status

These birds are declining in numbers due to loss of habitat. They are also parasitized by the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater), or outcompeted for nest sites by the house wren (Troglodytes aedon). It is listed as endangered in Canada. The species persists in protected environments such as South Carolina's Francis Beidler Forest currently home to more than 2,000 pairs, the densest known population.

In culture

This bird was named after prelates in the Roman Catholic Church known as the protonotarii, who wore golden robes. It was once known as the golden swamp warbler.

The prothonotary warbler became known in the 1940s as the bird that, in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, established a connection between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. Chambers had testified that Hiss enjoyed bird-watching, and once bragged about seeing a prothonotary warbler. Hiss later testified to the same incident, causing many members to become convinced of the pair's acquaintance.

This bird is mentioned in A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold as the "[J]ewel of my disease-ridden woodlot", "as proof that dead trees are transmuted into living animals, and vice versa. When you doubt the wisdom of this arrangement, take a look at the prothonotary."

John James Audubon's painting of a prothonotary warbler is the third plate in his Birds of America.

Gallery

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  In a cavity nest

• 

  Painting by John James Audubon

• 

  Painting by Robert Ridgway

External links

• Prothonotary warbler videos, photos, and sounds at the Internet Bird Collection
• Prothonotary warbler Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Prothonotary warbler - Protonotaria citrea - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
• Prothonotary Warbler "The Swamp Songster" by Lisa Petit (January 1997) – Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
• Prothonotary warbler recording at Florida Museum of Natural History
• Prothonotary warbler photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
• Prothonotary warbler species account at NeotropicalBirds (Cornell University)