curruca [nf] – warbler
The other day, on a hike in the hills of Palencia (northern Spain), I learnt to recognize a new bird: the warbler, or curruca in Spanish.
My husband, Alejandro, and I had stopped to take a break on our hike next to one of those educational wildlife signs, and there was a picture of a little black and grey bird with red eyes, labelled “curruca“.
We had no idea what it was, but I challenged Alejandro to guess the translation in English, and he came up with a plausible but clearly made-up stab-in-the-dark: “red-eyed sparrow.”
I laughed and said, “Nah, it’s got to be something like… [pause while I searched a deeply archived memory bank from decades gone by, when I lived in the UK and knew more bird names]… a warbler!”
A quick Google of “curruca in English” told me I was right. I was flabbergasted!
My dad used to pin wildlife posters on our kitchen wall when we were kids, so I guess I must have absorbed the info by osmosis.
Funny how I was able to access it some forty years later.
Sometimes we know more than we think we know.
Vocab
warbler – curruca
a break – un descanso
I challenged him – le reté
to guess – adivinar
to come up with – producir
made-up – inventado
stab-in-the-dark – un intento de adivinar a ojo de buen cubero
flabbergasted – atónito/a
funny how… – es curioso cómo…
My Little Spanish Notebook 