If you are not that much into birds but like to drink coffee, maybe the Northern Yellow Warbler may be your favorite bird. A study shows that the species – along with four others – reduces the damage at coffee plantations in Costa Rica by feeding on the coffee berry borer beetle, a common pest, by US$75–US$310 per hectare.

And it looks nice, too. The HBW says that it is “one of the most conspicuous North American warblers due to its striking yellow body and red streaks on its breast”.

However, they only say this after dedicating the species profile to one Ellen Adelson, a member of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Administrative Board – I wonder if most birders would agree with this prioritization.

Interestingly, the HBW calls it the American Yellow Warbler, though their use of the scientific name Setophaga aestiva indicates that the profile has already taken into account the 2025 split of the Yellow Warbler into two species (the other is the nonmigratory Mangrove Warbler, Setophaga petechia. Maybe some Cornell sponsor preferred the name “American” to “Northern”?

eBird is even more confusing, speaking of the American Yellow Warbler in the title but changing this to Northern Yellow in the explanatory text (and back to American Yellow in the photo captions) …

And yes, I did not get many decent photos, meaning that this post can be rather short.