{"id":1077,"date":"2016-10-19T09:29:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T13:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vampstampnews.com\/wpbirdseed\/wordpress\/?p=1077"},"modified":"2020-10-09T16:56:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T20:56:27","slug":"a-ruby-crowned-kinglet-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdseedandbinoculars.com\/wordpress\/a-ruby-crowned-kinglet-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruby-Crowned Kinglet Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Ruby-Crowned
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I found some time to sit out back the other day to watch birds and got to see some fun feathered visitors. The coolest was a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet. This little bird spent literally hours flitting up, down and around the leaves and branches of a single tree, hunting for tasty insects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

These little guys are FAST and constantly moving and the camera I was using yesterday is not. I took over two hundred pictures during the afternoon, probably two-thirds of which were of this one bird, just to get a small handful of clear shots. But it was worth it because she was fun to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ruby-Crowned
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Male or Female?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I say \u201cshe<\/em>\u201d but to be honest, I don’t know if it was a he or a she. The adult male and female of this species look just alike except for the bright red crown of the male. But the male doesn’t usually show off his royal headwear unless he is excited about something. Sometimes you can just barely make out a tiny bit of the red on a male’s head, but not always and this bird wasn’t showing anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yellow-rumped
Yellow-rumped Warbler<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Warbler & Chickadee Too<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

They are very tiny little birds, even smaller than a warbler. In fact, a Yellow-rumped Warbler decided to hunt for bugs in the same tree later in the afternoon. They were working different branches of the tree at the same time. The warbler was at least twice as large as the Kinglet. They seemed to get along okay. I couldn’t see them fussing with each other; they both just kept to the business of bug hunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a Carolina Chickadee in the tree at one point. He was fussing about something but I’m not sure whether it was directed at the kinglet or at one of the squirrels who run around in the trees too. (Chickadees tend to fuss a lot.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ruby-Crowned
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet Breeding<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Spend the breeding season in Canada and the upper northwestern US, Ruby-Crowned Kinglets come down to the US and Mexico for the winter. One cool fact I read about these birds is that they tend to have huge clutches of eggs \u2013 as many as twelve \u2013 and although each egg is very tiny and light, the combined weight can be as much as the mother bird! Can you imagine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ruby-Crowned
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet Hunting Style<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The kinglet hunted non-stop in that one tree for hours. They don’t foray out from the tree branch to grab flying bugs the way a flycatcher does. Instead, they simply flit all over the branches, grabbing insects from the surfaces of leaves and branches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this behavior that caught my attention and got me to train my binoculars on this bird. From a distance at a quick glance, I might have mistaken it for a fall American Goldfinch. But it acted more like a warbler with the smaller size of a kinglet. If you spend enough time watching the birds common to your yard, you get used to their typical movements. Then when a different bird visits, it draws your eye to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A Popular Tree With The Birds. <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n