Bird of the Month: Golden-crowned Kinglet
Written by Andy McCormick
Andy McCormick, Volunteer and Former Board President of Eastside Audubon
The Golden-crowned Kinglet is a tiny bird of conifer forests that has a yellow, black, and white head pattern. It spends most of its time in the upper reaches of pine, spruce, and cedar trees.
Golden-crowned Kinglets are active birds, flicking their wings continuously as they search in small flocks among branches and under leaves for small insects, spiders, mites, and their eggs. They can also be seen hover-gleaning, that is, hovering while picking insects and eggs off the underside of leaves. They can often be heard high in trees and can be difficult to see, but during cloudy and wintery weather, they drop down to forage in low shrubs and even on the ground. Golden-crowned Kinglets are adept at using all levels of the forest as needed.
This kinglet is more brightly marked than the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Its wings are dark with yellow edges and have a bold white wing bar. The yellow median head stripe is in the middle of the black crown which is in turn bordered by a bold white supercilium. Males will often raise red feathers in the center of the golden crown during display or when agitated. Photos, videos, and recordings of Golden-crowned Kinglets can be found at the Macaulay Library.
IN CONIFERS YEAR-ROUND
Golden-crowned Kinglets tolerate winter well and can spend the cold months farther north than many other songbirds. The dense conifer woodland they inhabit may be protective and the flocks also huddle at night for warmth. There is no documentation that kinglets thermoregulate by going into a torpor state as hummingbirds do and researchers say more information is needed to learn how many of these small birds can survive in very low temperatures (Swanson, et al). Census data show declines in numbers of golden-crowns in later winter months, which, despite this bird’s ability to survive in very cold weather, may indicate there are losses due to cold.
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Scientific Name: Regulus satrapa
Length: 4”
Wingspan: 7”
Weight: 0.21oz (6 g)
AOU Alpha Code: GCKI
PROLIFIC BREEDERS
For a small bird, the Golden-crowned Kinglet produces many eggs, usually 8-9 in a brood and sometimes as many as 11. The eggs are often arranged in two layers in the nest (Kaufman). Golden-crowns also produce two broods per year. The female builds a hammock-like nest using conifer twigs, moss, lichen, paper birch bark, and dead pine needles, and completes shaping the nest into a cup by rolling side-to-side and kicking her feet (Swanson, et al).
The female Golden-crowed Kinglet is a remarkable nest builder. She begins building the nest for the second brood as the male feeds the fledglings in the first nest. If a nest is destroyed or attacked by a predator, the female begins building a new nest the next day (Swanson, et al).
STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION
Golden-crowned Kinglets breed in boreal forests from SE Alaska to Newfoundland and in the west and south through the Cascades and Sierras. They also breed at higher elevations in the Southwest. Additionally, there are resident populations in Guatemala and Mexico (Swanson, et al). Populations in the Pacific Northwest swell in winter as resident birds are joined by migrants from the north.
As a forest bird, the Golden-crowned Kinglet prefers old growth conifers. However, it will also exploit trees in mixed forests, suburban areas, and parklands. Forestry practices impact this species and have led to fluctuations in regional populations. Eastern kinglets are expanding their breeding range southward following replanting of pine and spruce forests in the north-central United States. However, as forests are thinned in the western states, population densities have decreased (Swanson, et al).
Both scientific names of the Golden-crowned Kinglet refer to royalty. The genus Regulus is a Latin diminutive for a king over a small territory, and the species epithet, satrapa, derives from the Greek satrapes, referring to a Persian provincial governor (Holloway). The Ruby-crowned Kinglet (R. calendula) is the other North American kinglet in this genus.
Photo credit: Mick Thompson
References available upon request from amccormick@eastsideaudubon.org
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