This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the golden-crowned kinglet.
Not much longer than a hummingbird and weighing about the equivalent of two pennies, this is one of the world’s smallest perching birds. In summer, they inhabit dense, mature spruce, fir and pine forests where they are always on the move, looking for food. These tiny birds lead a precarious life in regions where winter temperatures can dip well below zero.
Even in winter, golden-crowned kinglets are primarily insectivores. They feed on a variety of small insects and also eat spiders and their eggs. Being lightweight allows them to cling to the clusters of needles on the tips of conifer branches where they can locate hidden food unavailable to heavier birds. On occasion they drink from sapsucker wells and in urban areas will come to suet feeders.
In order to fuel a high body temperature and metabolic rate, this kinglet needs to eat constantly. In winter, going without food for as little as two hours during the day may mean starvation and freezing to death. It may eat three times its body weight in insects each day to build up fat stores for the night.
Outside of breeding season, they live in small groups that huddle together at night for warmth. An inch-thick layer of feathers and tucking exposed areas on the head in them, along with redirecting blood flow away from the feet and legs, helps to reduce heat loss.
Groups are in constant vocal contact while foraging throughout the day in order to avoid separating in the dense forest. Tuning into these high-pitched, thin, “seet-seet-seet” calls while hiking in the woods may be the only way to locate these greenish-olive diminutive birds. With a bright crown of feathers bordered by black and white stripes, yellow in females and orange and yellow in males, they are the little kings of our beautiful fall forests.
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