11/15/2017
Very pretty image of Golden-crowned Kinglet (GCKI) at Hilton Pond in South Carolina. We get these here in . Had 3 here in , , about 3 years ago or so. They only stayed visible a few minutes so I never got pics for posterity. Just didn't move fast enough :D
Chilly, rainy weather at Hilton Pond kept me from deploying mist nets for several days, so I was pleased this morning (14 Nov 2017) when conditions were more conducive to banding. It was good to finally catch the first Dark-eyed Junco of the season--convincing me that winter is indeed imminent--but the bird of the day had to be a feisty, diminutive male Golden-crowned Kinglet (GCKI; see attached photo). This fall I'd already banded several of this bird's first cousins (i.e., Ruby-crowned Kinglets), but GCKI are considerably less common here at the Center and their brighter colors just seem to warm me up on cold days. (For the record, in 36 years of banding I've handled 594 RCKI but only 164 GCKI.) Female ruby-crowns are about as a drab a bird as one can find, with gray-green plumage and a pale white wing bar; the male differs only in a red crest that stays hidden unless he's stimulated by a female or an intruder. The golden-crowned has quite a bit more bling, with a pair of black head stripes bordering a swatch of bright yellow; the male gilds the lily with a brilliant orange-red central crest that's usually more visible than that of the male ruby-crowned.
Historically the kinglets were placed In the Sylviidae (Old World Warblers), but recent DNA analysis suggests they should be in their own family, the Regulidae. (Bird taxonomy is in constant flux, it seems, so I won't be surprised if someday the kinglets get lumped or split yet again.)
Our North American kinglets have overlapping ranges but follow different lifestyles and food preferences. Both nest primarily in boreal forests of Canada and overwinter in the southern U.S. The ruby-crowned is a generalist, munching on everything from dogwood berries to small insects and even suet and sunflower seed scraps left behind by bigger birds. As conifer specialists, Golden-crowned Kinglets tend to be more restrictive in diet, preferring to go after all sorts of small arthropods and their eggs--food items they glean from bark and pine needles.
http://www.hiltonpond.org
