"[4] The genus name Vermivora is from Latin vermis "worm", and vorare, "to devour", and the specific chrysoptera is from Ancient Greek khrusos, "gold", and pteron, "wing".

Golden-winged warblers breed in open scrubby areas, wetlands, and mature forest adjacent to those habitats.

Male Golden-winged warblers use their brilliant yellow crowns, black throats, and white tail feather patches to signal habitat quality.

Birds with more ornate ornaments protect higher quality territories and are typically less aggressive than their less brilliantly-colored conspecifics.

[12] Five geotracked golden-winged warblers in Tennessee were observed migrating hundreds of miles south, presumably avoiding tornadic storms, in April 2014.

Golden-winged warblers forage in hanging dead leaves, which are often a result of intermediate disturbances to the forest plant community.

[14] During the breeding season, golden-winged warblers nest in shrubland and regenerating forest communities created and maintained by disturbance.

[15] This species forms two distinctive hybrids with blue-winged warblers where their ranges overlap in the Great Lakes and New England area.

An exceptionally rare triple-hybrid, the Burket's warbler, was described in Pennsylvania in 2018 by researchers at Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology.

[19] Genetic introgression occurs across their range, producing cryptic hybrids (morphologically pure individuals with small amounts of blue-winged warbler DNA).

The two chicks were subsequently "adopted" by a male black-and-white warbler, which fed the fledglings for 23 days until they reached independence.